Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It's getting towards the settlement date on my newly purchased house at Hawthordene, so I guess now's the time to start posting my ideas and getting some feedback. Mainly so I don't kill ALL my fish and plants.

The basic concept is that I should be able to provide a large percentage of the fresh food my family needs. I'm thinking a 3x6M double skin greenhouse, with heavy duty stands holding two growbeds above each other to give me a total of around 20 square metres of grow space (5-10 mm gravel, flood & drain using auto syphons and a main pump) and a 5000L tank (plastic rainwater) + a cheap solar pool heater and a small solar powered pump with a battery for continous water circulation with the tank itself.

At the moment it looks like I'll be buying some yabbies and silvers from Soladome in Norwood since they're local and will give me a reasonable price on the silvers ($1.50 each for 100).

Food will come from household scraps, leftover veggies and chicken eggs (going to have six layers) + commercial feed (from SolaDome or anywhere else I can get it).

I'll post sketches (dreams) as I can and as things start to progress break out the camera as well.

PS Thanks to all of the wonderful postings in other topics; that helped me get my thoughts togther

This is my first idea: Two set's of grow beds in a greenhouse with a sump tank and a pump that pumps water back into the fish tank when it reaches a certain height. An autosyphon to empty the top third of the fish tnak into the two top beds and smaller autosyphons to drain the top beds into the bottom and then the sump.

Yabbies in the sump and silvers in the tank (in the shed)

Hmm, I would not go any smaller - I have a bed which has +-5mm in it and water passes through it slower than in my beds filled with 100 tinaroo gold - just a thought!

Looking forward to seeing your system grow and develop! sounds like you have given it a lot of thought already!

Rats two copies of the pic!

The second thought I've had is that I don't really need the sump tank to be so big I can simply have a sealed drump with the pump in. This of course means if the pump fails the bottom two growbeds end up half full of water; but it'll save me a lot of cost and maybe cut down on algae.

is there a reason the tank is outside the greenhouse - and so far from it?

Thanks for the tip Aquamad, I've been agonising about the size of the grow bed media because I want to try some root vegies as well.

As for doing some thinking about AQ; I lie awake at nights visualising my tank and the beds; and mentally going over different options. I've bought the "backyard Aquaponics bible", even read through the recommended Aquaculture texts at the Uni I work at. So I guess I'm not really a fanatic yet I do think of other things (like can I use a wind driver pump)

Nice E2.... How will the bottom beds go for getting light? It just looks like they may be a little shaded....

And with AM, any reason why the fish aren't in the greenhouse too?

The tank is actually going to be inside a large garage the new house has. This will enable me to control the temp. of the tank a little better.

I'm going to have to type faster The bottom growbeds will be for plants that don't like as much direct sun, and also allow me to use the space I have more effectively. I guess the other reason for not having the tank in the greenhouse is that I have this huge garage....whereas I'll have to buy the material for the greenhouse.

Ahh, that helps

Well thought out, Monya has his tank inside his garage (separate from grow beds) and I like the concept also (for my next system...still in the planning stage....aaaahhh!)

Keep up the good work and we might add an "L" to go with the "E" - triple El

Settle down Les, your EL2 has been killed off already!!

Sorry to interrupt the merry banter ; but while I have people's attention: I'm still looking around for suppliers for greenhouse film and tanks. Any local people who are good to deal with?

I'm going to build my own green house (tunnel as in the diagrams; but with thin PVC pipes running the length of the outside acting as seperators for the second layer of film. Has anyone built their own double skinned greenhouse?

E[s]L[/s]2

Produce Carton and Bin Supplies at virginia (8380 9888) will sell the greenhous film by the metre. That's where I got mine, just gave them a call , told them how much I needed and it was waiting for me when I got there. And way cheap too at $9 a metre 7.5 m wide.

I haven't ever done 2 skinned, this is my fisrt greenhouse. I eagerly await yours so I can copy it for system no 2!!

Pretty good price. I'll give them a call.



Or not copy it depending on how mine goes
Although if worse comes to worse I can just roll up the outer layer and use it for another single film greenhouse.