Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello, thanks for adding me. I have a ton to learn. I Was originally interested in hydroponics but was set back at the cost of the nutrients. Being a farmers son I am very tight when it comes to money and have access to equipment and tools that usually make it so I can do. Things cheaper. I like having the fish provide the nutrient and being able to consume both.

Originally I wanted to go with freshwater shrimp (prawn) but I haven't found anyone using them for aqua phonics.

Lots for me to learn and I am sure my outlook will change as I learn.

Thanks for advance for the help I know I will find.

Welcome to the forum Rio Grande. Sounds like you wont have any trouble getting something together. Can't wait to see photos

welcome to the addiction!

Thanks and I can definitely see this as addicting. Think I am going to start with a floating raft system for simplicity,..... maybe. The biggest problem with this is so many choices. My only hold up is we are talking about putting a greenhouse in this fall. If we do that I want to run production by spring.


Does anyone have any input regarding starting plants in aqua then transplanting into dirt. The reason I ask, one of our most costly bills every year is buying vegetable plants for our raised beds. Each bed holds up to 400 plants, we have 8 rows. We produce around 400 plants now using traditional methods but it isint near what is needed. If we could just get our starter plants for the beds in one of Hesse systems It would be worth a lump right off.

Hi RG and welcome,

Plants coming out of AP and going into soil will do fine but what I've found is that my raised soil beds warm faster than the AP water so I usually start plants in seedling mix and transfer to AP during the early Spring. During late Spring and Summer you can just seed directly into AP and you'll be ok. These are just my experiences with the cool climate and less sunshine in the Spring than you get. FYI, I don't heat the AP water in my system since this would be expensive. I suppose if you did heat the water you probably could start seedlings in the AP.

I use a heat mat to warm the seedlings in plug trays for peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, melons, basil and other warm weather crops. Any plants potted up, and the cool weather plants, get the top shelf in the greenhouse which is warmer but not a whole lot. To give you some perspective, my current seedling production in the Spring is only about 150 seedlings since peas, carrots, beats and so on are direct seeded in the raised beds and some of the other crops go into the outdoor beds in the Fall for me.

Hope this helps.

It does help Scotty.

A lot of our tobacco farmers here raise their starts hydrponicly but they use small amounts of dirt instead of media. They place them in cold frames. I think if we build a greenhouse the water warmth might not be a huge limiting factor but without it we will not be able to justify the added expense of heating.

Leaning heavily to trying this with prawn. Had som discussions with my parents who actually own our farm and they like the idea of a September harvest of prawn for an appreciation celebration for our CSA members and family. Then if it wish a success I would expect an expansion next year.

We are leaning towards a runway system for the prawns with air lift pumps for circulation. The biggest concerning have is how to circulate the water out to the plants. I don't have that figured out yet.

Hi!
If I may, whereabouts are you in IN? I started a small AP greenhouse here in Bloomington last fall to try to learn things to take back to my parents farm (out of state but same climate zone). It's been quite the learning curve, but it sounds like you're more acquainted with garden/produce to start with which will help (I come from a large commercial commodity crop farm and have never really dealt with these types of plants).

One thing I can say about the greenhouse and the winter we had here was it needs to be double walled, well-sealed, lots of thermal mass, and possibly even heated to maintain a steady temperature. Mine would get hot during the day and almost freeze at night, making cold weather crops bolt to seed and warm weather seedlings just didn't take off. I've picked up a lot of tips to have better luck next winter, but the above criteria for the greenhouse is the mains of it.

Best of luck to you!

I am in southeast indiana. My biggest concern about this entire thing is cost to heat in the winter. We have the ability to run an ad hoc geo thermal set up, but will still have to heat that air to a temp that will maintain the temp in the winter. But that isint simple. Nor cheap.

Thanks for replying. Sounds like we are in similar situation with our parents.

I would look into as many ways to conserve heat as possible. Possibly take heat from the peak of the greenhouse and pump it into the ground beneath the greenhouse during the day, like this Subterrainian Heating and Cooling System - http://www.roperld.com/science/solargreenhouses.htm#SHCSAmerican. Uses 55 gallon barrels as manifolds for distributing the heated air through corrugated drain pipe. Pretty thorough videos on building the system out on YouTube.

Might also want to look into rocket mass heaters. Take a look at Web4Debs thread and zsazsa's thread. Web4Deb did the ground heating and RMH. Zsazsa did a solar greenhouse using barrels as thermal mass along the back of the greenhouse.

This might be useful, it's a ground heating system using drain pipe and a solar collector- http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Sunspace/HighTunnelSolar/HighTunnelSolar.htm

Thanks! Will do