Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone. I just started my foray into aquaponics a few weeks ago. I am located in the southwest burbs of Chicago, so if there are any other fellow Chicagoans (or really anyone even somewhat close) here I love to hear from you!

My system is small ~50 gallons in a heavy duty rubbermaid tote. My goal is to use as much recycled materials as I can for the system. My wife thinks this means make it look ugly, but I beg to differ . I pump the water from the tank up about 5 feet to a rain gutter that runs about 7' long. The water drops about 2 feet to a second gutter and flows back into the tank. The media in the gutters is a mix of lava rock, and clay pellets. I tried messing with a bell siphon, but was getting frustrated with it and gave up. The pump is on a timer 15 on, 30 off.

I started cycling about a week ago with 5 goldfish. My Ammonia is between .25 and .50, no NOx yet, and pH is a pretty elevated 8.8+. Not sure where that is coming from - I measured the water I put into the system at about 7.4, and did an acid test on all my media (no fizzing).

The setup is in a 3 season room that stays about 10 degrees F higher than the outdoor air, so cold. I have a 300 watt tank heater that works very well - until I pump the water through cold aluminum gutters. I cant get the tank over about 62 degrees right now so I think I may get another heater and add a tank to preheat the water returning to the aquarium. Suggestions here would be helpful. I think I may add some pipe insulation to the gutters as well. At this point I am thinking of expanding the tank and stocking it with a few channel catfish because of the low temps.

Another issue - gutters are difficult to get a high enough flow rate through the media to keep my pump from overflowing the gutter, and cycle the tank once per hour. I am still experimenting with the best angle to keep them at.

I can't add pictures right now, but will soon.

Hi ccgeogeek and welcome

Definitely difficult to get a consistent autosyphon with less than about 10 inches of water.

Roots in your gutters are also going to further impede the flow so if you are unhappy with it now I'd be modifying it before planting.

You have to leave tap water about 10 to 12 hours before measuring pH . As it off gases the dissolved air and chlorine the pH can change.

If you want to use the gutters think about changing them to NFT with a little media filled growbed as a filter constantly overflowing into them - and if you run them both in parallel you will likely get the flow you want

I never thought about running them in parallel, I think that is a great idea and will try that. Thank you.

If that doesn't work I had considered burying some 1/2" diameter tubing at the bottom of the gutter, extending from the water inlet to about half way down the gutter. But maybe the easiest course of action would be to just add some additional growbed space and divert some of the flow to them.