Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Greetings gardeners! I'm a 19 year old film student from good green oregon. I love makin electronic music, makin movies, drawin/animating, and aquaponics (even though ive never tried growing food or keeping fish)!

I've been lurkin on these forums for about a week. I first heard of aquaponics on the Daily show where the guest was pitching vertical aquaponic farms as the solution to the rising food crisis. I thought the idea was brilliant. I had no idea aquaponics was even possible. But now that i did, my mind wanted more. I went and found as much information as i could because i knew i wanted to try this. I drew up a bunch of potential designs for small aeshtetically pleasing fountain/farms that i wanted to build:



After some lurking on these here forums, i realized that a few things were wrong about several of these designs. But that one in the upper left seemed just-about right. Deep GB with decent room and spacing, big aquarium, not half bad looking. I've since drawn up more designs for the same type



Basically the idea is to embed the fishtank in the growbed (with the fish tank rim being elevated roughly an inch above the growbed surface [i know it doesnt look that way in any of the drawings but just go with me on this one]). The fish tank either overflows or is filled until it drains down a center pipe and into the growbed where there are small drainage holes take the water back into the sump (perhaps through crushed oyster shells first). and the sump pumps it back up the center column back to the tank. The pump is on a timer to allow the GB time to drain fully. The pump i got is a 1200lph 1.6m head max

But a few questions:
1: can the pump output tube end at the tank bottom, or does the pump have to run all the way to the surface?
2: Tank overflowing out the sides or use the central pipe to drain in the GB? If i drain out the side i can put some filter stone at the drainage areas to catch solids, if i use the pipe i should probably put the solids filter IN the drainpipe, which would probably eventually clog yea?
3: Switch the sump and the aquarium?
4:Youll notice on these second designs have a hollow unit in the center where the aquarium would go, how big can this be? that is, how wide do the grow spaces need to be? right now theyre about 1 foot deep and 3-6 inches wide (in some cases tapering out deeper further down)

Once i figure these things out im on my way!

Welcome Seige. You have some interesting designs!

hey Seige, welcome

(PS, is it possible for you to reduce the size of your pix in your image bank? then we can compare them all on the screen more easily?)

Welcome Siege!!!

Groovy designs, have you heard of the farm fountain http://www.farmfountain.com/ ? Are you saying that someone was on the Daily Show talking about aquaponics, like with Jon Stewart?? Is that on YouTube?

Download Google Sketchup (free) and make some 3D models of your designs!

I've been having a play with different configurations since getting infected with the AP virus, goes on for pages:
viewtopic.php?p=106266#p106266

Here's some reduced images for yall




Thanks for that Sketchup program that will come in useful! I was looking for some simple 3d modeling! And that farm fountain site looks like it will be great for new ideas. The 2-liter bottles are brilliant! im gonna go off on that one!

I guess it wasnt actually The daily show, it was the colbert report! but all the same:
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertrep ... eId=170997
(hopefully you aussies will be able to get to that one)
If not, same guy:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=5uLTOMsF3uU

Haha "...and it's pleasantly phallic."

Theres a contestant for the gokul award

Great Drawings - I like the one on the right with the fishtank below and a mesh growbed above