Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Can I get folks who are using a vertical system to post a link to a pic or thread wehere they are shown so I can get some ideas on how to proceed with what I am working on.

The "Keeper of the Books" let me get some materials this weekend to install a pond for our turtle and future koi but the location is not where I wanted it so it looks like I will have to go vertical for the most part.

Do you mean the plants mostly, or the whole shebang will be vertically-challenged?

Gravity is your friend with water, but gravel is heavy. Towers and planted walls could be used, but these are less sure than gravel beds.

Bad, this is the first page of my system, it has links to pictures of the towers at different stages
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=412

The planting part. I can probably get one or two beds about 2'x 8' and then everything else will have to go vertical. The pond will be about 400 gallons but will not be heavily stocked. I also have to figure out how to incorporate another 2-3 hundred gallons from a large chest freezer and a hundred gallon tank. I have a 1420 gallon hr waterfall pump that will pump to 18' head. The boss doesn't want me to spread out too much so time to go vertical.

I was thinking a couple of 4x4 frames with 1' wide beds triangular and pipe planters along the wall. Bad ASCII to follow. anyone tried something like this would there be any benifits to a system like this?

OOPS SEE ASCII DOESN'T WORK
(edited out ASCII)
will get a drawing done and post later

Thanks Jaymie!

Can you post a picture of the site? Or maybe if you could mock up the location in Sketchup the peeps could riff on it with suggestions?

There are a lot of nice systems where the grow bed is over the water, I'm thinking of Thomas'. That would be a good start maybe, then pipes or whatnot surrounding. Does the location get good sunlight?

viewtopic.php?p=122838#p122838

Will do some drawing and take a few pics but wont be up for a while since the camera is tied up today at the 3rd graders fieldtrip to the Botanical Gardens.
I can probably put a bed or two over the freezer but the pond is for esthetics and will be off limits although I might cheat and build a couple small beds around the outside as part of the rock work.

I started digging the hole for a portion of the pond Sunday night but only got about an hour in before dark and Monday was a bust because of daughters swim team practice after work.

The area gets more afternoon sun than anything but it gets at least 4hrs of direct sun if not more.

Maybe stepped terraces surrounding the pond would be acceptable, like a hillside.

unfortunately not enough room will have to go to a remote site.

How many fish do you plan when you say not heavly stocked?

In the pond not more than 10-15 common koi or goldfish. The ones I have seen locally don't get more than a pound and a half or so full grown plus a red-eared slider that is about 4 inches now.

I'm going to take a leap here and suggest with 16 fish that size you can support 1 1/2 blue barrel grow beds perhaps 2. I would not go more then that. So what ever that works out in volume. You can always add more if you get more fishes.

I was planning on adding some additional tanks that would be in another location that would be tied to the same system. I have not figured out how heavily stocked they would be but much heavier than the pond.

The pond just gets me started

Sounds good and of course we all go more and bigger once we see it first hand. There is no known cure for AP me thinks. Perhaps when the world is totally transformed?
But for your beginnings I think a 15 sq foot grow bed would do for the fish you plan, one foot deep a course. Just guessing from my experience with my own system. That should work out to be the same as two blue barrel grow beds. Not to terribly big but fully planted and it should do the job.

Thanks for that John