Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

heres where I started...

not sure about square footages and litres and all. It was all free from work, so I took it. the proportions seem to be fine.

I hadnt done enough reading when this was started, so my original idea was to use a header tanks to be autosiphoned into the growbeds and then just trickle back into the fishtank underneath

There are many ways to do it and it is perfectly normal to re-arrange things a bit too (at least it's normal for me......I might not be too normal though )

Those look like nice containers. What kind of place do you work at?
Do lots of reading before you get too far ahead of yourself, you might find some ideas that can help you a lot!

Welcome and good luck with it.

so I bought a air pump and airstone and fountain pump and 10 goldfish to start it off.

sept 4th 2009

took some cuttings from some earthbound basil plants....

In the little yogurt cups I planted various herb seeds in a smidge of paper towel. some came up and some didn't. I had some old tomatoe plants that managed to survive the florida summer, so I took a few cuttings off of them and stuck in the hydroton. some stuff made it and some stuff didn't. the basil is too much, but I had to get something in there, you know?

THEN got permission to get a second sysytem up ! yayyyy!
I wanted IBC's, but the only thing on crgslst at the time was blue barrels. close enough,lets go !

Yes we do know... not wanting to see any gravel is a good thing.

Hey, hey, hey.... FatElvis..... welcome to the forum...

ok, so nothing really serious growing yet. I just got hydroton for the barrels yesterday,and got most of it washed before going to work. I finished the plumbing all up. I put the pump in the sump barrels that are bolted together and the bottoms cut out to give me about 100 gallon or so. it is, of course, chift pist setup. I was planning on bell siphons in each, but the drainage pipes gave me such fits in the hot sun, I decided just to go with a standpipe and timer arrangement. got to get a new timer tho, the one I have doesn't work! Argggg!

Oh boy, you got it bad. Just said hi on the forum and the second system is already under construction.

Yea, it's crazy how much basil like AP, actually basil seems to like everything but cold but it is good to have something growing and at least it smells nice as you work around it.

I was having excess nitrates over summer when few things like the heat so I planted some bananas in AP. I've got a dwarf banana plant that is already about 14 foot tall, I only recommend these for grow beds that are on/in the ground and won't tip over but they use lots of nutrients and would probably like your weather better than mine!

Welcome big time!

Ah, barrels cut the long way like that can be really tricky to get flows right for siphons anyway, stand pipes and timer will be fine, just make sure you have an air pump and air stones going in the fish tank to help keep things stirred up and aerated for the fish even when the pump isn't running.

I have one system running with stand pipe and timer.

My fish power is 20 goldfish, 2 plecto's, and 5 palm sized tilapia I got from CL in a neighboring town. I dont know if they are all males ,i didnt think to ask, but 1 seems to be mean to the others. at any rate,I'm in a typical florida neighborhood on a quarter acre, so I cant go as big as I would like right now.
I would really like to have tomatoes,cukes and lettuce on a constant basis..