Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

Quick update on my demo. I am doing it this Saturday.

I have just finished constructing my system, and am really happy with the outcome.

I have the 3 GBs full of Hydroton, add am growing the following:

Lettuce
Basil
Zucchini
Chives
Celery
Parsley
Lemon grass
Strawberries

I have had the GBs hooked up to my existing system so the growth has been really healthy.

There are no fish in the demo system atm, but I have seeded the water so there will be some ammonia there to keep the plants ticking over until Sat. After the Demo I will be hooking it back up to the existing system.

The system has a pond pump and the GBs have loop syphons which worked first go. Pretty chuffed about that.

Anyway, here is a photo of the system. Looks a bit cramped because I had to put it in the only part of the garage that gets any sunlight.

Thanks to all the people who have allowed me to use photos of their systems. If anyone else would be happy to have their system photo up on display as well, please let me know.

Thanks

Simon

Hmmm, don't know why it double-posted.

Anywho, here are photos of each GB

Your flooding a bit too high = the hydroton should not get wet at all.

The reason why the hydroton is wet is because we had just had some storms go through the area.

The flooding doesn't reach the top of the hydroton

I looked in all the photos for a sign of rain too

Good luck Simon... let us know how it goes....

Here is a small version I built with a 10 gallon aquarium and a 28 qt storage container with pea gravel. The piping is .5" and the Bell Siphon is 1.5". A plastic bottle was sacrificed to make the gravel screen around the Bell.

I have upgraded this AP unit.
I built a stand using 2x2 lumber to take the (too much) weight off the aquarium.
I bought a 3" piece of PVC, then cut and drilled it to create a new gravel screen.
I took off the pump guard (plastic container the pump is in).

I had a fourth pic of a close up of the drain piping but couldonly upload three pics.

Tony

Hi all,

Ok, so it was ages ago that I ran the demo, and I seem to have dropped off the AP radar a bit, but that is all past and I am hopefully back up and running again in the real world.

So here is my report of the AP Demo that I performed all the time ago.......

One of the things that I hoped to achieve from the demo was a chance to learn while also educating. Well, I think I did educate others, but I certainly did learn for myself.

I arrived there nice and early (8am) to give myself plenty of time to set up. Setting up went well, except some confusion between myself and my wife regarding who was bringing the legs for the whiteboard. Anyway, that was all worked out and I turned the system on at about opening time.

The three GBs seemed to run ok to start with (loop syphon) until they started to block up. It turned out that the Expanded clay was getting into the overglow pipes and was getting stuck at an elbow.

I would manage to get one working when the next one would block. This went on all day! Very frustrating, but a great learning experience. It seems that transporting the systems caused too many of the clay balls to get inside the PVC pipe that was intended to keep them all out.

Anyway, I soldiered on as best I could. In total I had about 25 people turn up to have a look. Some were just at the nursery and came to see, but I was really pleased to find that some had come along expressly to see what the AP was about. I did a brief talk at 10am, 12pm and 2pm. The talk went for about 15 minutes and was a very high level introduction to AP.

I have attached some photos of my demo. I was hoping to do another demo at the nursery but recently found out that this is not going to happen. I searched around for another location and have found a great one in a town called Wollingbar. There is a well established aquarium that also sells plants (mostly succulents but better than nothing). I have already approached the owner and he is fine for me to do a demo.

Last weekend I made some modifications to my system in preperation for the second demo. I have used wire to ensure that no clay balls can get in to the overflow pipes to block it.

Doing this maintenance has taught me another thing that I want to share with you all. After my last demo, I was given some plants to put in to the system, including some lemongrass, strawberries, eggplant etc. Before I was able to add the wire to stop the pipes blocking, I had to get the three growbeds down from above the fish tank. Before I moved them I stopped to admire how they were looking. There are chives cascading over the front of the GBs, Strawberries are looking healthy and the Lemongrass is huge. It looks great and gives the system some excellent colour and height. (I will take some photos to upload once it stops raining here)

So I grab the first GB and manage to lift it and carry it over to where I was going to work on it. Here is where it got painful. Lemongrass has extremely sharp edges to the grass. Sharp enough to cut skin! By the time I had carried the three GBs down, fitted the wire in place to stop the blocking and put the GBs back up above the fishtank I was covered in cuts and scratches from the Lemongrass. My ear was bleeding from a cut on the lobe, my neck and chest were bleeding and my arms were a mess! All superficial of course, but still nasty and hurt like buggery!

So, if you are going to set up a system, as good as Lemongrass looks, be very careful cos it is a real bugger.

Anyway, I am going to add some photos, and I will be adding the notes that I used for my talks. It is brief and written as a prompt for me so I am not sure if it will be of any use to anyone else, but I will add it anyway.

Thanks

and a few more photos

I was going to add the document of my talk but I can't upload documents so here is what it had:

Aqua – Aquaculture
Ponics – Hydroponics

AP is a closed-loop system that takes the negatives from each method (Aquaculture and Hydroponics) and turn them into positives.

Hydroponics requires:
• Measuring and mixing artificial nutrients
• Also involves dumping of spent nutrient solution
• These nutrients are getting to be expensive
Aquaculture – Fish produce 2 types of waste. Solid and dissolved. Solid can be filtered out without too much trouble. Dissolved is Ammonia and it is harder to remove. Ammonia is harmful/deadly to fish. It is created by various actions (eg)
• Solid waste breakdown
• Fish food breaking down
• Action of water flowing across the fish gills
Most commercial aquaculture systems replace a % of their water to dilute the Ammonia. This also has the negative of Ammonia being added to the environment.
AP Takes the negatives and turns them into positives.
Water is pumped onto Growbeds where plants are growing. In the gravel are 2 types of bacteria. The first takes Ammonia and converts it into Nitrite (which is still toxic to fish). Second bacteria takes Nitrite and turns it into Nitrate (which is a form of nitrogen which is easily taken up by plants, and is not harmful to fish except in heavy concentrations).

So we end up with a balanced close-loop system
1. Fish create Ammonia
2. Bacteria converts the ammonia into food for plants
3. Plants take up the nutrients, making water clean for the fish
Where does the bacteria come from??? Naturally occurring!


Why Bother
• Approx 1/10th water usage of normal gardening
• Low maintenance
• No weeding/digging
• Plants raised off the ground – to your level
• Plants can be grown closer together
• Growth is very quick
• Additional yield – fish (if edible ones used of course)
• Set up in a small area (even balconies)

What plants can be grown?

Only limit is, plants that don’t like wet feet are not an option
Successful plants include:
• Tomato
• Lettuce
• Strawberries
• Most herbs
• Cucumber
• Silverbeet
• Peas/beans
• Watercress
• Celery
• Eggplant
• Capsicum
• Broccoli
• Garlic
• Asian vegetables (Bok Choi, Pak Choi etc)
• Pawpaw
• Rockmelon
• And more....... (someone has even grown baby carrots)
What fish?
• Goldfish
• Silver perch
• Barra
• Jade perch
• Yabbies/red claw


How it works
Continuous flow: Water constantly pumping onto grow-beds
• Dry spots
• Root blockages
Flood and drain
• Flood the GB (water not to the surface)
• Have drain/dry period
*******Talk about my home system********

NFT
• Uses Hydroponics equipment with AP methodology
Floating raft
• Has plants floating in the water – must have plants that respond well to constant water (eg Water dress, lettuce etc)
Autosyphon
***********Talk about demo system********

What equipment is needed?

• Growbed
• Fish tank
• Pump (submersible or external)
• Sump?
• Piping

The wire you added. Stainless steel.

Nice to hear from you Chookie... hope you're above the current floodline, sounds like things are a bit damp up that way...

Hi all,

I am booked in to do another demo on the 27th June. This one is at the Summerland Aquarium in Wollingbar (143 Lindendale Rd, Wollingbar).

Hopefully this one will go off with less glitches than the last one.

I will give an update after the demo.

Take care everyone...

Simon