Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone!

Just find about Aquaponics three weeks ago and I became crazy about it ever since.
I had this crazy Idea of raising Tilapia as a bussines, though I had a problem: Water.
When I noticed about aquaponics.. well... my reaction was a little bit uhhmm... Nuts. Anyway,
I´m trying to start off an experimental system on my rooftop, since there are no such "backyards" in the residential urban designs of my city, (you all have your home here in Guadalajara ) and well... I´m joining the site ´cause it´s fantastic, I was looking for a place to soak myself in AP Knowledge, and found it here.
Hopefuly I´ll post photos of the first "home-made blueprints" and area to install, so that you all can give me fine feedback.

Oh, by the way; I´ve got some questions.....
- is it correct to use the regular water that comes out of the valve??? or should I go to a river or something to get the water?

- Can AP be targeted towards Raising large quantities of fish??

-What´s the size of the growbed and how many are needed if Im implementing a 1000L fish tank on my sistem?

Thank you very much to you all and....... VIva Mexico!!! jejejeje

"Saludos" Fierrovick .... welcome to the world of aquaponics...

A note on water.... yes you can use tap/valve water... but it might pay to find out if/what it is treated with... and its pH...

Typically, because aquaponics is a recirculating system... it only uses about 10% of the water requirement of soil based crops... and typically, only loses about 10% of your system volume per month via transpiration through the plant surfaces...

With a 1000L tank... you will require a minimum growbed volume of 1000L... stocking at a fish density of 3kg/100L.... so potentially 30kg of fish in your 1000L tank...

Tilapia can be stocked at densities higher than most fish... but filtration of your water related to the amount of feed each day, and the size of the fish... will be your limiting factors...

As your fish reach maturity, so your feed rate reaches its maximum... hence your filtration requirement also reaches its maximum...

For this reason, we suggest that a fully loaded, mature system should have a growbed volume of twice the fish tank volume...

If you were to increase your stocking density... then similarly... you would need to increase your filtration volume ....

Do you have reliable power where you live... as oxygen is another critical factor in the health and growth of fish... even Tilapia...

Fierrovick wrote:
I´m trying to start off an experimental system on my rooftop, since there are no such "backyards" in the residential urban designs of my city......

"Saludos" from Australia. Welcome to the forum!
Make sure your rooftop will be stong enough to support your FT ......1000lt. water = 1 metric ton. plus all the other things like GB's and ST........you don't want to finish up on the ground floor.

Well I certanily have enough power from a reliable source; anyway, I´ve already ordered a small solar power to feed the pump, wich is gonna be about 1/4hp.

As of the rooftop strenght, well.... It´s solid bricks and concrete; but I´d check it out anyway.

Bien Venidos!

One other possibility is to put your GBs on the roof, and the fish in the house. It might alter the size of you pump, but would cut down on the weight you have on the roof.

Not only do you have to check on the materials your roof is made of, but also what the loading capacity is (due to freespan area, etc.) And also what the weather load on the roof is - High winds, rain, hail, etc will put a particular load on your roof, and the 2-3 tonne system on your roof will really increase that.

If you have the FT/sump in the house, then you can have gravel beds feeding NFT troughs going down the side/back of your house, giving you that much more plant load for your system, it will also allow you some expansion room, by mating another tank to your system (these ideas always grow...)

Welcome to AP, I hope you enjoy
Another possible solution to weight/space would be to use the hydroponic gutter trays along the sunny side of the house or even go vertical like in strawberry towers, like suggested to drain back to a fish tank/sump indoors.

wow guys... you're all really into this right? you have gave great Ideas as of the acomodation; The FT Indoors sounds specially interesting; now.... Strawberrytowers??? sounds really cool.

Nevertheless, I've got some little "math" issues while designing the blueprints wich ended up in something like this (photos still to be posted):

FT: (1m x 2m)0.5m = 1m3 ; Capacity= 1000lts @ 30kg of Tilapia at 3kg/lt.
GB: (.65m x 1.60m).25m = (0.26m3)
x 4 = 1m3

Pump: 1/4 Hp , desired to raise the 1m3 of water 1m above the floor and fill in the beds; water will fall by gravity back into de FT.


Now, with all of this I realized through your previous comments, that when the system gets to maturity levels, I would need to double the growbeds, thus resulting in 2000lt growbeds (as a whole) vs. the 1000lt FT. I certainly DONT HAVE THE SPACE for so many vegetables and Im worried about the ceiling. To clearify the things up, I`m trying to build a "small and experimental system" and
having measured the space where I wanted to set the system I thought that the specs. posted above would be proper; now that I realized about the overwhelming capacity for AP systems to grow life.... well.... I guess Im off the charts for a begginer´s system.

So I guess that what Im trying to say here is that: How big are the systems you used to start "secure" and don´t kill everylife on the tanks if a mistake occurs????

jeje well I accept any Ideas.
Greetings from Guadalajara.

I am by no means an expert, but I would suspect that you would need more than one FT to make this work as a business, just to make sure you have a constant supply.

There is your main tank, which is the main grow out tank... then you would need other tanks for smaller/younger fish which will replace the mature stock you are selling...also to move smaller fish from the main tank to when grading the fish according to size.

Then there is the breeding tanks (if you plan to breed your own stock), or an isolation tank to quarantine new stock to make sure you are not introducing anything bad into your main tank.

As for the grow beds..you could probably get away with a 1 to 1 if you have additional filtration in the system, maybe an external canister filter (aquarium type) between the growbeds and the return to the tank, or you could search this site for RSG filter.

As for a "small experimental system", you could look through a few of the systems here viewforum.php?f=18 to get an idea as to which way to head.

just a few more things to think about,

Himzo.

Fierrovick

Hello from Australia and welcome to the forum

have a read of the small systems under 500lt as this is a good place to start and can be done reasonable cheaply and with things that can be used in a larger system with only some minor adjustments to your system
have fun with this and research everything
it took me 4 months to read enough and 1 afternoon to put a small system together

i hope to see a system thread and some photos soon

Saludos Fierrovick,

Yo vivia en la colonia Chapalita, unos anos atras..... and I miss it. I know the area very well, so, if I can be of any assistance, please let me know.

As for the roof system, please do your homework. Many of the roofs there would support several large fish tanks. The one where I lived would have. However, most just look like it. Be careful. you won't get much warning, when it gives up, you won't have much if any time before disaster!

En todo que necesitas, estoy a sus ordenes,
Saludos,

Mathew (Mateo)

Que tal Mateo! En la Chapalita? ah ps yo no vivo tan lejos de ahi, de hecho estoy en frente de los Tecos. Anyway, yes, Im trying to find the specs of the roof, although I know it's not very fragile still a posibility for it to fail.

Nevertheless, after getting so many knowledge about AP here, I saw a system based on "Tubes", I dont remeber the name. If this tubes can be attached to a wall... well, I'll switch to that system instead of the flood and drain, and redesign the whole thing.

Hi Fierrovick, just one more thing for you to think about and I assume you have a flat roof..... as in completely level, just allowance for water run off? check on the supporting walls under your roof, check wich could be considered load bearing walls and how much load will they take?
If you are not sure....consider asking somebody (qualified) with building experience to check it out........
Just some ideas.....do your 'homework' - careful planing.....step by step

Two days ago, when I joined the forum, I thought that I was ready to start my own system, sin ce I had like a week watching youtube videos. How wrong I was! .... One has to be very careful about the details if you want a well balanced, efficient, neat, and nice system; it´s an art certainly, to grow stuff in your own home.
And I love it!!! for now I´ll return to te blueprint table and keep doing my homework ; by the way, Im not going to risk the rooftop anymore, I´ll sell a table I have on a small patio, an redesing evrything in order for it to fit there. What´s "CHIFT ..somehting.. " ???????

CHIFT PIST is Constant Hieght In Fish Tank Pump In Sump Tank

It's system which only uses one pump to pump the water from a sump tank up to the Fish tank and then gravity fed into the grow beds, thus keeping the water in the fish tank at a constant height.



Himzo.

Fierrovick...that's the way to go about setting up your system, do your homework, do some plans/bluepirnts
put it to the forum, expect criticism/advise, alter your plans/blueprint until it is a workable design and you are happy with it then go ahead......