Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Guys,
I'm quite a keen gardener. Really love growing my own veg.
I have a 17ft Polytunnel as well as a 6ft green house.
Both are still producing food although its nearly november.
Currently I grow in soil. I do a lot of composting.
I'm looking to set up a small system in a corner of my poly, or in the green house.
I'm quite into the self sufficiency thing. And was looking build a project over the winter.

Hi Rio and welcome in the AP world, I'm having fun building my second polyhouse at present and cold weather it's always a challenge when u get wet hands and have to hold tools and bits.
Unless you use water heather there is no way the system will cycle with current UK ambient temp,all fine for building the system and test flow/leaks/dynamics etc..but fish is likely to be introduced next year.
Good luck and keep in touch.

Those were exactly my thoughts.
Building something in my poly or green house will mean I won't really get wet hands.
Even thought its blowing a gale today, inside the polly was fine, slighty noisy but you can't have it all.
I have some 200l barrels, I work in the food manufacturing industry and the syrup comes in these 200l barrels.

I'm thinking of fish in the barrel. And plants in a 4inch drain pipe, laid horizontally with holes cut in the top.
Or maybe a barrel each side. One with fish in it gravity feeding to the second one, and the second one pumping water into the drain pipes, (two or three drain pipes in a row). And then the drain pipes returning the water to the fish barrel.

I think if you just planning DWC (Poly pipes) you will also need a Bio filter for the conversion to happen well enough.

what type of fish do you have in mind? barrels have a limited space for a fish that is harvest at plate size (450g min)
NFT pipes will definitely need some sort of filtration for the gunk, or it will clog roots very fast and you will end up with anaerobic zones. unless you transform the header tank in a biofilter and then to NFT pipes.

I have managed to secure a few ibc's from wotk.
Just need to organise getting them home, I will have to hire a van.