Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have been interested in vermicomposting and organic gardening for awhile now. We've got raised beds and two worm bins. We'd like to add aquaponics as the third tirer in our self-sustaining sytem.

GrowingPower.org is my inspiration, but I don't have 2 acres. I've got a small backyard, but there's only two of us in the house. I'd like to start with catfish or something similar. I love tilapia, but there seems to be a lot of red tape in Florida.

I read about a family in Chicago that raises tilapia in a 55 gallon drum - http://www.berkshirepublishing.com/ans/ ... 031000244A

I'm a novice, so I'm planning to attend classes at http://www.morningstarfishermen.org/education.html, but I can't go until September. Anyone have any other sources for handson training/information?

Brian
Tampa, FL

Hello Brian, and welcome to the AP madness! You will find you have a lot of company from florida here. Catfish are a good choice as you can get 1 to 1-1/2 lbs growth in a single season and they can survive the winter well. The forum is chocked full of sustainable stuff like food forests. Look around thru the threads and make yourself at home. If you have any questions just post and you will get lots of advice.

Thanks BatonRouge Bill.

I'm not much of a "make it from scratch" type of guy. I'm looking for a smallish system that doesn't have a such a large footprint. I don't have lots and lots of space.

Most of the turn key type systems I see for sale online are $7,000+ and take up nearly a 20 x 20 area (or more). I'm looking for more of a single grow bed with a holding tank that is situated underneath. I've seen these types of systems for sale in Australia, but so far not in Florida. I've only been searching online for a week now, but I'm losing the faith pretty quickly.

Hi Brian,
Good to see you made it over here.

I think the main thing we are really lacking here is a supplier of Joel's fab grow beds so we must be creative and find/make our own. Truth is, rubbermaid stock tanks seem to be a pretty good choice for that purpose. A simple system of a 300 gallon tank as fish tank and then 3 100 or 150 gallon tanks as grow beds is pretty nice. I believe janet's system wound up being something like this in the end, too bad we don't see her posting much anymore, hope her village project is going well.
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=735&hilit=Janet%27s+Jungle

A barrel ponics system can be built for about $300 and takes up about 6' by 8' of space (including walking space around it) though it doesn't provide space for very many fish or plants but it is something.

How much space do you have available for AP? It does not necessarily have to all be tight together, there are people who have put their fish tanks in a garage, shed or patio and the grow beds on the other side of a fence. My AP system has a part that has hanging pots along my front porch while another bed is along the side of the driveway and the main system is beside the garage and another two beds are over by the compost bins.

Thanks for the link to Janet's set-up. I have something very similar in mind to start (maybe a tad bit bigger). If I build up a level of proficiency, I might be able to convince my wife to devote more space to a larger system.

Yes. I wish I could duplicate something closer to Joel's system. It is nearly exactly what I had in my mind. The biggest positive about Joel's set-up is that my wife already blessed it. She saw the picture and reacted positively. Up til then, she's been trying to reserve judgement. Too bad it's not available in the states.

I have a grow bed that looks a lot like a raised garden bed (sitting right on the ground) this might be one way to extend the AP system while letting it still look much like regular garden space. It is my "monster bed" as I called it cause it is 28 feet long but something like that could be built as part of a "sump" tank since sumps can be challenging here where the ground water can rise daily popping a normal sump up out of the ground.

I'm leaning toward a 300 gallon Rubbermaid tank teamed with a 150 gallon grow bed. I found this picture that seems to be the basic system: http://www.wegrow.in/wp-content/uploads ... system.jpg

This fits my budget and space limitations fairly well.

Now if I can just find some instructions for how to set it all up.

You'd be better off the other way around.

After doing a little more looking around on the web, I see that many of the 300 gallon Rubbermaid fish tanks are teamed up with 2 or 3 150 gallon Rubbermaid grow beds. Due to space limitations, I can only manage two Rubbermaids right now.

I was thinking the 300 gallon would be more forgiving than the 150 gallon for the hotter temps we sometimes experience in Florida.

If you do the 300 gallon as the fish tank and the 150 gallon as the grow bed it simply means you only grow out around 30 fish (that is if you are only growing them to about a pound each, if you go for larger catfish, then you have to cull more of them small to let some get bigger.)

A 300 gallon fish tank could handle a lot more fish but you can only support as many as you have filtration for.
25 gallons of flood and drain media or gravel filled grow bed can support 5-6 lb of fish.
Having more water will make your system temperature more stable which will be a good thing here in Florida. Hopefully you can add a second grow bed once the wife sees how good an entire meal from the garden is. (Just keep the fish tank shaded and you should be in pretty good shape.)

i agree or add 2 more of the proposed growbeds like in the picture if ou can fit them in

remember your growbed ratio should be between 1:1 and 2:1 growbed to fish tank for best performance