Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm in the process of building my barrelponics system, and because I know you all love pics so much , here's how I'm doing so far:



Fish tank and upper tank:


I'm starting the seeds in vermiculite, to get a jump on growth. I chose basic stuff mostly: beans, snap peas, tomatos, lettuce, herbs, and then some fun stuff, like bell peppers (capsicum) and squash.

[hr]
I'm hoping to build the stand and get the gravel this weekend. I've only done a quick search for pea gravel so far, but the stuff I've seen locally is limestone. If all my gravel is limestone, will that just buffer the pH, or will it swing it too far out of range?

I think I'm going to start with goldfish/minnows/whatever I can get cheapest, and then see how warm the water gets with the growlight. I'd prefer to use tilapia eventually, but am also looking at the local fish like crappie, sunfish or catfish. I do wonder, though, if the money I'd spend on fish food for the local carnivores could cover my electricity bill for heating the water up for duckweed-fed tilapia. I just bought a Kill-A-Watt, so I'll do some measurements.

I also need to decide what to use as a growlight. I need to go back and read that topic! I'd love to use LEDs, because of how efficient they are, but as always, $$$ is a consideration...

Wheee! I'm on my way!

good work Karen!

Nice Karen, yes, limestone will affect your pH quite a lot, a bit of limestone in your beds is good, but all limestone will result in a very high pH.

I'm using a mix of washed shell and river rock in my beds. The big system with that mix I am only starting to cycle and the pH is still up at like 7.9.

Here are a few things I've learned about the medias I'm testing out and trying to work with. And a few notes about water pH and buffering that I didn't know before (as I've not been an aquarium person before.)
1- the pH of your water right out of the tap could be very different from the pH of that very same water after it has sat or outgased for a while. My well water comes out the tap with a pH of about 7. After bubbling it or running it in a system with river rock for a while, the pH is 8.

Wow, after talking to an aquarium guy I was under the impression that I would not be needing to buffer my system to keep the pH up.

I set up my barrel ponics system with 1/2" brown river rock and started fishless cycling. For a while the pH remained high and then as the cycling started to take hold, the pH droped into the mid 7s. That seemed all good. Then to my shock after giving some heavy doses, the pH dropped below 7. I was down into the 6.8 area in a young system with very hard well water. Hum. I was adding ground egg sells but they were not enough to get back over 7. I finally went and got a couple bucket fulls of washed shell (sold around here as a decorative gravel.) I put a paint strainer bag full in the flush tank and I filled the top (what I turned into a small grow bed with a bell siphon) tank over the flush tank with washed shell. Imediately the water went cloudy white and the pH was up to 8 but came back down to 7.6 in short order. That system has stayed at 7.6 ever since. The two half barrels are filled with 1/2" brown river rock and the top tank has washed shell.

So it seemed the washed shell would buffer to a pH of 7.6 (there might be some shells in there that want to buffer higher but with the mature bacteria in that small system the pH has been pretty good.

My larger system that is using a mix of the river rock and shell all through the beds is still not cycled up yet and the pH has been stuck high (kinda like with the other system but I'm still a little worried that the shell might be buffering too high and slowing things down.) I should probably be patient and see what the pH does after cycling progresses a bit further.

Steve will probably chime in soon as he can better explain things about alkalinity, buffering, hardness etc........

Anyway, I'm not sure but I think the lime stone will buffer higher (perhaps too high for the plants to get enough nutrients) than something like shell. If you can get a bucket full or a sample of the limestone you are looking at as gravel, it might be good to run some pH tests to see where it will take your pH.

I have heard of some talk of using limestone or marble mixed with an acidic media like coco coir. I don't know if this would balance things or just cause the limestone to dissolve faster to keep the pH where limestone wants it to go?

Since you are doing this in a basement, you might even want to think about something other than gravel as media. Just because hauling gravel into your basement (and forbid if you ever have to haul it back out) might not be so fun. The expanded clay products might be pricey but are gonna be lighter. Or lava rock (if you can find it in smaller sizes) might work though it will probably turn the water colors for a time even after washing.

Do you have a test kit yet? Can you share your source water readings (before and after letting it air a bit)? Are you on well water or city water. With city water you may have to deal with removing chlorine or chloramine.

Good luck!!!!!! Keep us posted.

Hi Karen
You`ve done a very good job there.
Florescent lighting is cheap to run if you keep the plant height low.
Plants like chilli, tomato etc can be forced to grow pretty flat by applying some strategic bondage

Hum, plant bondage in the basement. Will it become the dungeon?

I have been growing lettuce indoors under florescent lights during the hot months here. I think one of my 2' wide by 4' long 4 tube T5 fixtures uses about 216 watts (each tube is 54 watts). I think for a barrel system I would use two of those fixtures. One over each half barrel hung on chains that will make it easy to adjust the height of the fixture. Then you would just need something else over the top tank. I find it is easier to keep plants of about the same stature under a light and if they are all leafy greens, one doesn't need to worry about different light bulbs for the different growth stages.

You may want to consider compact flourescent lights also they use less electricity and they make them in the correct color intensity for plant growth.

Yeah, I've been thinking about hydrotron for that very reason. Does it have to be cleaned like gravel? All those fines... I remember someone in here saying that the fines from their lava rock hardened like cement.



I don't have a kit yet, but it's on the list. My source water will be city water, which here in Minneapolis is pretty good. A bit hard for most people, but I actually like hard water.

It does have chlorine, and I'm saving some gallon jugs to allow water to degass before putting it in the system. I will, of course, let the whole system run for a few days to let the initial chlorine degass. And, I'll buy some of those drops just in case I need a catastrophic water change.



I do have a few climbing plants including soybeans (I loff edemame), so while I may start with the lights low, I think I'll want them to be high later. I forgot to mention that I intend to build some insulated 'walls' around the setup. Probably just foam board covered with reflective mylar. Hopefully that'll bounce the light around so much that it won't be such a big deal. Also hopefully that'll help the water stay a bit warmer.



Yup, looking at those too! Most of my house is already on CFs, although I hate the whole process of disposing of them... *insert old story about playing with mercury as a kid, yes, really, and yes, it explains a lot...*

If you need to have the lights further away from the plants and think you will need some help warming up the place anyway, look into Metal halide or some of the other hydroponic lighting. I expect that to get enough lumen to your plants from a distance, this might be as energy efficient and keep your plants from getting too leggy reaching for inadequate light.

For really small set ups where the lights can be within a few inches from the plants, I say florescents but to cover more space from a distance, (especially if you will also be doing flowering/fruiting plants) something else will be more efficient. I expect that one 400 watt Metal Halide would cover the same square footage of grow bed as my two florescent fixtures for about the same wattage. Main differences being. Metal Halide can get real hot, (though I think watt for watt the same amount of heat is probably produced.) And more importantly, the light from the Metal Halide is effective from a greater distance and can penetrate into the plant canopy better.

Good Luck.

What kind of fish are you planning on raising? I've stayed in my daughter's basement in MPLS and it is cold 9 - 10 months a year. Does U of M offer ideas?

Here is another option for lighting but it is in its infancy still

http://pesn.com/2005/07/27/9600139_Fibe ... n_Indoors/

Infancy means really expensive. Fiber optics would be perfect for my basement system as there is plenty of sun just on the other side of the wall. I actually looked around at fiber prices and it's not cheap to get ones of sufficient quantity or diameter.

just mug some telephone company guy on his way to a job, pinch all his cable

Cityfish: I'm not sure yet. I'm going to measure the water temp in the system after it's been up and running for a few days and then decide. Probably a local fish that's OK with cold, but I may decide to heat the water, and in that case I'll get tilapia.

I'll start with goldfish or minnows or something cheap.

This morning I'm going to a local supplier of LED growlights, who has decent prices. We'll see how that goes!

Jaymie: Ha! As it happens, I have a telecom substation just down the street from me! Those big rolls of fiber optics are often just sitting on trucks out there...

From what I've seen here, not really.


thatfishplace.com is a good source. The API freshwater master test kit does ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, low and high ph. Really useful.



Sounds really good, but watch out for low O2. You might want to bubble a little air from outside your enclosure. The stuff inside may be high in CO2, low in O2, cause problems. Depends on how well you seal it, but it doesn't take much air to supply their needs and takes little heat out.

Welcome aboard!