Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Moderators,
As someone who hasn't got a system up and running, I found this to be a really encouraging post - perhaps it could be edited and placed in the FAQs for other newbies?

Hint - 'It's part of the package they are compiling'.......

There are so many useful things on here and one of the things that would really help would be to have compilation of all the good stuff.
A bit like Joels Book he put out.

I suppose we should all have one, that way we wouldn't have to spend so much time on here

Rob @Aquagold

I have an autofeeder on mine, which means that theoretically I don't have to spend any time at the system, other than harvesting. The reality of course is that I tinker and play with it a fair bit :-)

Once every few weeks I get dragged up to " Do something with your tomato plants!" which takes half an hour or so to trim and tie them up, but aside from that it is the same as everyone else, 5 min + 30 min looking at fish ( and redclaw)

Aquagold,
Be careful what you ask for, such an idea only needs some one to do it. The one to suggest it may get asked to do it.

seems like the consensus is 5 minutes or less daily. the rest of the time is spent admiring and wishing there was more to play with.

One word of advice for when you start? understand the nitrogen cycle and cycle your system. The temptation to get lots of fish when you know very well its too early is great. even for me.

Tried that with one of Aquagold's previous suggestions/requests. Needless to say it didn't work

+1 on the 5 minutes a day thing. Like TC I also throw some food in on the way out the door to work.

The time commitment for me is 100x greater when you consider time on the forum.

The major time commitments come from reconfiguring the system or making new ones, the maintenance when things are all put together is extremely small. This is good; if AP was a high maintenance hobby I probably wouldn't be doing it for this long.

If you start with a proven setup, like say enough gravel beds from the get-go and simple timed pump instead of siphons which may require some tweaking at the front end, and you don't fiddle with it after it is established (the harder part maybe) then the maintenance is miniscule.

It's all lies I tell you. First of all theres the look at all the precious fishies and check how much they have grown since yesterday, then look at all the new season seedlings for something new to plant. Add seeds and they will start growing in five days. Monitor their growth daily. Feed the fish everytime visitors come and then do a 1/2 hour system run down. Then you have to weigh and photograph just so you have a little brag book and then you have to keep a forum diary and post the photos, check what everyone else is up to while you are there. So that is just about a trip around the world. Before you know it the time is 5 oclock and it is time to harvest a salad or herbs for garnish and pizza topping, take more photos and post more updates. That is before you catch the fish, scale, gut or fillet and find a new recipe. Cook dinner, take more photos of the process and the final dinner. Life will never, ever be the same as it was before, I promise you that.
But you know what I would not change it for the world. I love my backyard aquaponic system and my fish and plants and they know that.

And Faye, it shows.


I also have a daily routine of feeding the fish and looking for ripe tomatoes, checking on growth of everything from fish to egg plant, capsicum, paprika, habanero, basil and cabbage etc
Takes me at most 15 minutes, including removal of unwanted shoots & stems, dying leaf stems from tomatoes and planting new vegetables in bare areas of grow beds.

The longest continuous effort recently was the harvest of our Tilapia, which required draining of the FT (water used on earth gardens - the Roses loved it). In all it took about 3 hours, plus a couple of 2 minute checks over 4 hours, refilling the FT and ensuring normal operation of all flood points.

Tony

Don't let everyone fool you! Faye knows the real scoop. Added to her's are the week's and month's of design work, and then there is construction phase I, and then phase II, all the way up to phase XX. Then there is the time spent explaining to the local "farmers", the kind that actually make their living from working their farms, how the system works...The first response is usually some thing like this... So, you grow your produce in fishsh_t, and then eat it.

Had one really argumentative one say that the only thing that would grow in those systems is alge. Don't need it, I have very nice lettuce sprouts, and radishes too, even now, before Kentucky Derby Day. My response, I have had fresh salad with my own lettuce for the last two weeks. THAT shut him right up. Finally I have something to brag about over breakfast down at the general store each day. For 5 years, I have been the city slicker that had to learn everything. Thanks to all of the hours you guys put in on the forum, I come off like a freaking expert. Thanks!

So my day so far is:

get up, read some posts on this forum, go to work, think about the piping and where i should put my pump, have lunch, read some more 10000 page threads about systems, go home, search for barra info, have dinner, check for any new posts, kiss wife goodnight, re-design my system and check my bill of materials, go to bed, dream of piping layouts.

get up and do it all again! I am sooooo glad i found aquaponics

Even if it was going to take me five minutes I can't see myself keeping to that lol.

I haven't had this much fun in years, seriously!

BTW I have some tilkey 600L GBs does anyone have an idea of how much water they will take to flood after I fill them with 10mm drainage gravel?

Time actually needed = 5-10 minutes /day
Time spent pottering around = about 1hr weekdays and 3-4 hrs on weekends.
Forum time = Who knows? but I'm sure a lot.

Weekends are a constant walk up and down to the greenhouse as I read something on the forum, walk down to see if it'll work on my system. Take a photo, walk up, post on the forum, read something else, back to the greenhouse. Get the picture?

Beware of the addiction, you have been warned !!

John, checked my Tilkeys out recently and I put in ~160 litres...this was from a drained position (there would have been 20-30 litres in the bottom)...taking that into account, there is probably 200 litres of water in the GB when at normal flood level...normal flood level is under the gravel so is set around 500 litres (rest being taken up with gravel and root mass )