Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Greetings Everyone,

Introducing myself, straight out i think ive always disliked gardening in general - until i heard about AP at the grain and fodder store one day. the symbiosis of the fish and produce got me interested and the fact that my daughter has shown a keen interest in growing strawberries and my mother in law loves fish

Im a rigger and tech guy so i love building things and tinkering. id like one day to have the system im building with pretty graphs to monitor and fish to eat!

I currently got a hole filled with two IBC's and a frame over the top to support the grow beds and walk around it completely. Ive since added a bench to the space behind the shed to hold up to 7 tubs for strawberries and herbs, with the bulk of the greens to go in the main 4 beds.

We would like to eventually grow some trout/silver perch with the plan to add some marron in separate tubs at a later date. If i can get the wife on board - and she is providing it doesn't look like a failed science experiment then i might be able to expand further

Currently we have the infrastructure complete and the next phases are:

Irrigation (pipe sizes? in/out)
Design of biofilter
Data monitoring (temps/pH)
Air pump (air rocks?)
Rocks and growing media
Goldfish to cycle

could be some other stuff im missing in there, its all a learning curve

-Nathan

welcome to the forum. Chase up some of Colum Black-Byrons threads for some good DIY ideas.

what are you planning to use for the fish ? The sunken IBC's ?

This is not a bad setup to expand. The sunken IBC's could become sumps (with marron etc if you like) and you could go for a larger circular aquaculture fish tank which IMO is better for serious food fish.

you probably find that better off using tubes or square channels for strawberries.
They grow fine on DWC (media less troughs) and need a bit of room for each plant (hence tubes work well).
On your wall you could have a vertical set of tubes quite easily and probably get more plants than the tubs.

Looks like a good setup, I'm in Elizabeth if you need anymore information.