Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello from the great white north. I am hibernating in my "cabin" right now while the wind and snow howls around outside. Thinking about an aquaponic aquarium in my living room. I don't have any aquarium experience but I have done a lot of reading here. I have some hydroponics experience though and I am a market gardener in the non snowy months.

Aquaponics appeals to me because it is a pure organic hydroponics that solves most of the problems of hydroponics like dumping nutrient solutions and constant pH adjustment. In recent years I have been utilizing some of my urine in compost piles and on selected garden crops after doing a lot of research into ecosanitation and safe urine use protocols. Once I realized that aquaponics sometimes uses fishless cycling, the lights went on and I realized aquaponics holds great promise for the future. So here I am after downloading the BYAP mags and reading this forum for a few weeks now.
I am just starting my system. I could use some pointers on a number of things. Right now I have a 4' wide x16" deep metal shelving unit with very strong shelves 600lb. each. I have a 20 gallon aquarium that my son had left behind from a lizard now diseased. I have room for one more aquarium beside it maybe a 10-15 gallon. I have an air pump and stone but at this point I have no powerhead pump or filter. The shelving unit is already equipped with 160 watts of flourescent tubes on each of two shelves above the aquarium. My thoughts so far are to get a MagDrive 350 water pump and pump up to a 6" deep tub of hydroton in a flood and drain with siphon overflow and possibly into a NFT run underneath and back into the Aquarium. Plan to grow basil, peppers, lettuce, mustard cabbage and cilantro etc. Also thinking about using a sump (possible a second small aquarium) The plumbing connections involved still boggle me a bit too. So anyways thats my story. This is a great forum for people who obviously a bit nuts, so I belong here!

So you wish you had our climate...

40+ degrees, no breeze and bush fires one day... and 18 degrees, pouring rain and a bloody gale the next...

And that's just Melbourne...

Welcome to the nut house Canuck...