Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

After trying to find some flat land to make a system simmilar to most other peoples, i thought why not use the natural contours of the land. I also wanted to make a working system as cheap as possible, and still be able to harvest fresh veg, and chemical/pollution free fish.

First pic is a view from the top of the hill, there are lots of leaves in the grow bed, but once i have made a mini greenhouse to cover the grow bed and the pond this will no longer be a problem (i will remember to rotate it next time). The pond is covered with azolla, although in the pic it does look like leaves

Second pic you can see the pond bank, with some jonquils (spelt wrong...but they are those mini daffodil bulbs) and a ground cover. Once the plants grow and cover the dirt it should look a bit better.

Third pic is a picture of the grow bed, which will be fed water in a continuous flow (but have plans to make the flow better....with the aid of an auto siphon......its all planned out in my head waiting to become reality)

Money spent.....Just under $100 (more than half of that was spent on the pump....4500lph)

The first pic is the before pic, with the "dream" all marked out and awaiting the go ahead........


Heres a pic of an old disk box...er i mean germinating greenhouse

Notice the many tomato plants all around it, a few tomatos werent harvested in time, so now theres 100's of tomato plants

This pic is of the pond. The bamboo is there to protect the fish from birds until a mini greenhouse has been made.


Oh and more pics to come soon

Feel free to go off topic in this post, and complaining about people going off topic, is going off topic as well!!!

This lizzard is everywhere, in my grow bed, in my worm farm, and i have even found him in the pool before

an interesting departurefrom the norm dan. Casn't wait to see how it progresses,k and for less than $100 you've done extremely well.

Thanks Stu, i cant wait to see how it progresses also, nothing is set in concrete (so to speak) but i have a few ideas for it. The grow bed reminds me of a creek bed

I have goldfish cycling it (for 3 weeks now...). I am itching to put plants in, just going to let the nitrates get up there first. Am intending to get callop or silver perch soon, and when i do, the nitrates should start going up alot faster, and than i can plant!!!

I like it!. Look for the simplest solution first, an aquaponic commandment, and there it is. Not only low budget, it should be low maintenance too.

I just put the figures together to outfit the inside of my greenhouse, sure am thinking your budget looks good

On the creek bed. A variation could be no gravel in the lower half of the channel with some floating raft culture in there.

Running continuous flow. what size are your holes Daniel, this Aqua stuff clogs a lot. You can get away with 6 mm on faster flow or 8 a bit slower, probably pears and apples, 8'd be safer but harder to distribute evenly.

If you've got some favourite self seeders sprouting round the property try throwing a couple in the bed. They might start slow but it's nice to have a few plants established as a good amount of nitrates come online. Transplants can take a few days or longer, according to many factors, before they start to feed. Even when they do, the root mass is very small and subsequent capability to feed less.

Nice idea, I want a trough on my slope now...

the holes are around 3mm at the moment, i was hoping the pump would mash up all the solids. I was thinking of filtering out the solids. Would that be better or is it better to leave the solids in the system?

I will chuck some of the "rouge" tomatoes in tomorrow (theres 100's so if a few die it wont really matter....they need thinning where they are anyways)

In regards to the floating raft, the channel drains fairly well so theres not much water to float the raft in. However if the nitrates go up with the grow bed fully planted i am intending to do a floating raft on the pond itself

You will need larger holes. The solids are good, but the biofilm will clog 3 mls easily.

Dan, personally, the removal of solids in a backyard system has been proven to be unnecessay I feel. Although you may experience some clogging in your pipes witht he small holes and doing cont. flow I think can lead to more instances of clogging. As EB has found, a system that is left to mature over time will take care of it's own solids

See how you go

This one looks really cool, just like a creek bed.. you're right.

Hey, one thing though.. where is the pond? I can't seem to see it.. is it on the far left of the pic?

EDIT: Ok now I feel dumb, its right at the end isn't it? I thought the leaves were grow media. urgh.

EDIT 2.0: My place is on a hill I really like this design (and budget).. keeping my eye on this one

I will get on to making the holes bigger, and add some tomato plants tomorrow. I will take a better pic of the pond too.

Does anyone know where all the solids go? broken down by bacteria? Taken up by the plants? eaten by worms? Or is it just the magic of aquaponics?

just the magic I reckon LOL

Yeah, not only does it remove nitrates, but solid matter!!! Aquaponics truly is amazing