Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone, new guy here in Hawaii. I've been here in Kailua Kona Hawaii, the big island, for the last year. I live in a small apartment very near the water. Got a tiny little backyard, and between my wife wanting to do some gardening, and me wanting to hear water running near my bedroom window at night, I decided to do an aquaponics setup, and since I get a good view of it through the big sliding glass window, wanted something that will be ornamental as well as useful. I just got the basics set up and cycling really well, just got to get the biological part of the system going. I got a few feeder goldfish in the pond, just to jump start the system and , well, they're cheap, so when they die off through my poor decision making abilities, I can replace them. I've planted a couple pineapple plants I had on my front porch, that were only in water jugs anyway, so i dropped them straight into the media.. which is 5/8 inch black cinder .. (crushed lava rock). By the way, that stuff floats for the first 5 minutes... I'm going to be picking your brains, I'd really like this to work, mainly so I don't get to hear "I can't believe you wasted money on this" from my wife lol. Thanks ahead of time!

Chris

Welcome Chris...

Welcome to the forum Chris, you will find everything you need here.

Feel free to ask questions and post up your design idea's.

Aloha

Gday !

This is the basic setup so far.. need to add a couple braces to the middle, which I waited on to figure out my plumbing first, didn't want to get in the way of my drains. Please ignore the deplorable condition of the surrounding ...well, everything , lol. Slowly working on the looks.

These are my bell syphons. Actually work very well right from the start. My cycle times seem a bit fast... 6 min to fill, 20 seconds to begin full syphon, and just over 1 minute to completly drain. I don't know if I should slow it down..but it's working well, hate to mess with it. Comments?

The strainer took forever to make a pair of them. I have no idea how many holes.. but too many. works very well though..

Very nice....far too pretty

You need to dirty it up with some veggies

Working on that very thing..just didnt want to throw them in until I had the fish settled in for a few days. I'm not really sure how long it takes to get the nitrates ready for the plants. Gotta start the seeds this week, or may just go pick up some tomato plant seedlings. Apparently, the university here in hawaii has bred a breed of tomato that is resistant to the voracious insects here on the islands, N65 i think is what they call it. Has a really thick skin. Waiting for the Lowes store to get in their shipment.

Yea plant straight away Red. Not sure if you can get hold of a seaweed extract there on the island but a splash of that will assiste your plants along till nitrates are available. Im assuming your weather would be quite warm and tropical there so you might have a nitrate colony developing in a few weeks.

Just got back from the nursery, got the tomatos i was talking about planted, along with some herbs and bellpepers. Dropped a few cucumber seeds in as well, just to see if they would germinate in the bed. Going to go see an aquaponics farm tomorow to see if i can buy some tilapia fingerlings Its a nice place and a nice guy running it.

Bump.. how are things ?

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Hey there. Things are going pretty well. Ive been learning how my system works, and so far pretty good. Apparently, cucumbers do not like my system, they always die a couple weeks aftersprouting. Same with any kind of melon ive tried. Mint goes absolutely crazy. My wifes rosemary is doing great, chives and basil too. My tomatoe plants are huge, but im not getting many tomatoes yet. I am having to hand polinate to get tomatoes so far. If i can post some pictures from my Nook i will. I have about 20 goldfish and a koi, and they seem happy. Only real problem ive had is keeping the syphons working reliably. I had to turn off my water feature to assure enough water flow to create a syphon after awhile. Pump volume and syphon tube diameter seem to be a very much trial and error process. I have had to experiment with my tubes by constricting the diameter i ndifferent ways as my pump volume has seemed to decrease. I think most of the volume problem can be attributed to my choice of tubing going to the planter beds. I had a roll of poyvinyel clear tubing so i used it but i think im geting excessive algae buildup in the hose thats restricting flow. Like i said, learning curve and pocketbook restricted engineering choices. Also, my pump uses about double the electricity the chart on the package says it does according to my wife and the electric bill. Might not have noticed anywhere else but hawaii but its like 45 cents per kilowat here so it becomes obvious quickly.

Get rid of the mint, it will root clogg your system very quickly. If you want to grow it put it in a pot and water every now and then with fish water to fertilise. Check your strainer often with mint and tomatos as they expand their root system very quickly. Neat system. Cheers