Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello all,
This is my first aquaponics attempt. Its a smallish system that we had to put in our bedroom do to some space issues. Ive wanted to build a system for awhile but did not have a steady place of residence to do it. We finally moved to a place where i will be for a good while so it was finally time. We found a super cheap 55 gallon aquarium for the fish, my girlfriend has wanted fish for awhile so we decided that an aquarium would be the best FT. The gold fish we found on craigslist for free. we had the containers for the GB and the wood for the stand laying around the house. The biggest expense were the grow lights that will arriving in the next day or two hopefully. The pump is running 24/7. The flow is split between the two GBs and then is drained with a bell siphon. We have it working well enough that the burps dont make to much noise. The GBs are filled with hydroton. After figuring out how much the water + gravel was going to weigh i bit the bullet and went for the more expense choice.

more pics

Nice. The light and live plants are going to be really welcome as winter closes in....

Where there is a will, there is a way. Nice looking compact system. What are you going to grow in there and what kind of lights are you getting? My fist system is indoors as well, due to our cold winter weather. There is a great thread here called Janet's jungle describing an indoor system in Pennsylvania, with a lot of interesting info. Search for it in the members system. Looks great so far, keep us updated.

We are starting out with a few types of lettuce and two types of basil while the system starts up. Then we will be moving to a more diverse selection. I got a 400w setup that comes with a HPS and MH conversion bulb. Im sure I am on a government list now after doing my research about indoor growing since almost all of it is geared towards growing pot. I'll check out that post as well thanks.

Only worry I see for you is the extremely limited access to the fish tank with the grow beds in place.
Anyway, looks like a good enough starter system.

I've found that the cheap mylar emergency blankets make good curtains for around an indoor grow system. Bounces light back at the plants while keeping the rest of the room dim enough that you don't have to wear sunglasses inside.

For this go around we are only going to use the FT as an aquarium so there will be little messing with it, hopefully. It is a pain to work with the drains that are underneath but there is about 6 inches on both sides open and probably 7 or 8 inches between the GBs. I had to come up with a design that would fit in a pretty small footprint and would leave enough room for some taller growing plants. I was afraid of running out of vertical space and having plants to close to the lights. Once i build my year round greenhouse ill have a much less cramped setup.
I like the idea for the blankets. I have a shower curtain style setup in mind for it.

Got my light in the mail today!! Bought to emergency blankets one to go on the back wall and another to use as a shower curtain style blocker. I put the lights on a chain with a pulley so i can raise and lower it. We started germinating seeds in some wet paper towels and they should be ready to put into the beds soon. We are going to do a trail were we plant some in the GBs and some in some 50 count trays that will be transplanted later.

up and running

and here it is with the curtain.

That looks awesome! I like the cheep Mylar blankets. Where do they come from? My wife does not like the light in the living room and that looks like a good solution.

I found them in a hardware store. If you have a first aid kit around the house you might already have one. It works pretty darn well except the material is pretty light so when you walk by it moves around quite a bit. It might also be a good idea to put something stronger, maybe duct tape, around the edges to stop it from tearing. Once they tear they fall apart pretty quick. Also gives more light and heat to your plants.

Update: I have some basil and lettuce seedlings getting pretty big in the beds. The lettuce is about to set it's second set of leaves and the basil is getting pretty close. The ph is still up around 8 but I added a bit of vinegar to the water to drop it just a touch. I'm hoping that soon there will be enough bacteria growing to do that for me. The Ph from my well is right around 8.3 or 8.5 so it might be buffering the PH drop a bit. The leaves of the lettuce look a bit on the yellow green side so i made a foliage sprat using some seaweed fertilizer. The bacteria needs to drop the ph a bit more then i think the plants will be happier.
When we first got the fish i was feeding them every other day because i was so worried about the spikes. They are getting more food now moved it to everyday and yesterday they got two meals. I tested last night and i had 1.5mg/l of ammonia and then this morning it was back down to 0 and the nitrite were at 0 as well. So i guess this means that the fishies will be a lot happier with there meal schedule now. Still worried about going over board so they are getting a little less for each meal but overall they are getting more food.
When i build the bigger system in the greenhouse next spring i will definitely be doing a fishless cycle. To much worrying about the fish doing it this way.