Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just wanted to pop in and introduce myself and tell a bit about my system.

I live in Coos Bay, Oregon right on the coast and it is a great climate for almost any type of gardening. I run a small semi-urban farm, Kozy Orchard Farms, on 3/4 of an acre and currently raise chickens and pigeons, and, as you may have guessed, there is a small orchard on the property as well. Each year we harvest a couple of hundred pounds pf apples, plums, and cherries.

I have always had a passion for gardening and 3 years ago i put in a 250gal pond with 9 goldfish and have been hooked on aquaculture ever since. So the next step was, of course, Aquaponics to combine my two passions.

I set up my system today after first getting the idea last year, so I did a bit of research and decided to finally just set it up. I used a few things that i had sitting around the house and it came out pretty well for my first set up.

The system consists of the 250gal pond which houses 6 goldfish approximately 6" long. I used a regular pond pump which I have been using in the pond for around a year now. The water is pumped into a 30gal plastic kiddie pool where my plants are housed and simply overflows back into the pond over the side of the pool. Each plant is housed in a basket, made from a plastic cup, filled with gravel which is suspended in the water and hung from nails driven into a board that is resting on top of the pool. It is pretty much the deep root method, but still uses a growing medium. I currently have 8 lettuce plants in there with room for lots more and a few cuttings which I am rooting out.

I will post pics within the next couple of days of my set up so that you can get a better idea.

Welcome to the forum. It's been a while since I've been to Coos Bay. Used to live there when I was a little kid.
Looking forward to your pictures and seeing your results.

I've lived in Coos Bay for my entire life, I am right outside of the city limits, by a block or two.

I'm super excited to see how things go. I have some plants planted in the garden and the AP so I'll be doing a bit of a comparison. The only thing is that Dad said he liked the pond the way it was without the pool on top, so hopefully once I start getting food he'll come to like it.

Here is a quick sketch I whipped up from boredom. I'm not the best sketch artist...

Welcome to the forum KOF,

Looking forward to those pics

Jim Henson named them after Coos Bay.

- Always got a laugh from the Muppet Show. Nice one Ron

As well you should. In the muppets pilot episode, named "Sex and Violence" btw, they stated that the show was geared for adults. It was a variety show, for adults, that just happened to use puppets.

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=22264

I created a thread for my system with a few pics if you guys would like to pop on over.


That puppet sketch was great!