Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey guys and gals. I've been browsing the forum for about a week now. My buddy came to me with the idea to raise Tilapia and mentioned aquaponics... I didn't know what it was. I googled the AP and now I have caught the FEVER! I want one... bad.

I have a 180 (approx) outdoor goldfish tank and now am looking to turn that into a veggie growing station. Man, I'm exhausting myself researching all the different methods on growbeds...

Anyway, nice to meet ya'll.

Blake

Gday DK, Once you get on this forum you will find it hard to get off it. Welcome and enjoy the knowledge!!

hay there and welcome!!!!!!!

Yea, this can be addicting.

Anyway, I'll give a quick warning (especially after this past winter) that keeping the water warm enough for tilapia in aquaponics can be a challenge. I'm now doing Channel Catfish as my primary and they are pretty easy and grow fast I would estimate that in a sub tropical climate, the catfish are a better choice unless you have a source of free heat for the system.

I've become an advocate of using stock tanks for grow beds currently (since we don't really have something like the BYAP grow beds here in the USA at this point in time.) A 100 gallon rubbermaid tank costs only a few dollars more than the 50 gallon one (both just under $70 from tractor supply lately.) The 100 gallon tank doesn't need much of a stand to put it at fairly comfortable height for growing veggies and the extra deep bed provides plenty of filtration surface.

Anyway there is lots of reading and learning that can be done here on this forum.
I highly recommend reading all the Basic Info and all the Useful Info sections of the forum then pick a few of the big long Member systems threads to read through completely to give yourself plenty of ideas and chances to avoid mistakes others of us have made.

Welcome and good luck!!!!

Welcome DK!

Thanks all for the welcome.

TCL I'll be giving the rubbermaid tanks a good look.

I've been leaning towards a deep water culture system to start with. A chain of tanks linked together then a NFT system on the pipe that returns the water to the FT.

I love the idea of the flood and drain systems, but want to build that on my next attempt. My buddy that got me thinking about Tilapia will put a system in his back yard as well.

I have wondered about the Tilapia and the cold weather, but we were both thinking we'd have an indoor tank to raise the breeders and introduce the young to the tanks in the spring then harvest them in the fall. We haven't really thought through all that yet. This started out as two guys just talking... but now, now... I have to make one of these systems.

It's funny that out discussions started out with how we could raise rabbits for home grown meat. Just about the time we got it all figured out our wives told us that we couldn't do it. They couldn't stand the thought of us killing bunnies

Anyway... thanks again. I look forward to many more hours on the forum to help me with my new obsession.

If you're not going to be using flood & drain growbeds initially... then you'll have to setup some other kind of solids pre-filter before your DWC/NFT components...

Welcome welcome!
Deep Water will need some solids filtration to happen to the water before it gets to the raft tank. A flood&drain gravel bed does that, And grows plants at the same time.
Without solids removal, people find a lot of gunk builds up on the roots, you can imagine when that breaks loose and goes down the NFT channel you're bound for a clog situation... dry spots... It ain't pretty!

I'll be having a backyard BBQ and Hoedown pretty soon, hope you, the buddy, and wives can come down!

Rick

My FT already has a bio filter on it. I was going to modify the filter to pump from the filter into the DWC containers. This water should not have any solids in it. My goldfish are happy right now. The water is clear coming out of the pump.

I will start a thread soon with pictures of the site.

Yea, if you already got solids and bio-filtration going then you could probably send that water directly to NFT, towers, or a DWC raft bed. Just keep in mind that if you are going from something like a well balanced ornamental pond with gold fish and pond plants, it is possible that the pond plants are already using up most of the nutrients. If you add enough fish load to provide nutrients for the pond plants and a raft, you might find the current filtration is undersized for the situation. It may well still work, just keep an eye on things to avoid a crash or stinky situation.

(When I once tried to add some food plants to an ornamental pond system, I found that system was too well balanced already and the lettuce and basil I had added just sat there doing pretty much nothing due to lack of nutrients. I wasn't about to mess with the balance of that system though so removed the food plants.)

Currently there are no plants in the water.

I'm picking up 4 PVC tubes tomorrow from a craigslist ad. 8" tubes 14' long. He also has a 5' long piece of 10" tube that I'm gonna use to remake my filter.

The pond was home to goldfish and a turtle named Carlita, but I accidentally killed the turtle. Major bummer, we liked that old girl. Now that it's just goldfish with no plants... and I have the AP bug, I want to use all that nutrient rich water for something more useful.

We already dip into it a cup at a time to water plants on the back porch.

On NFT tubes, how much water (how deep) do you need running in the bottom of the tube? How far apart are the planter holes?

I know that info is around here somewhere, just haven't gotten to it yet.

Space the holes according to the maximum size of the plants that'll be sharing it... or go with 10-12" as a pretty safe distance.
The water does not need to be any depth, just flowing/trickling and the roots need to reach it. So there is a potential issue until the roots get long enough to reach it. I have seen a shoelace or mop string used, to dangle from up in the pot down to reach the water. I want to try a strip of polyester batting (Wal-Mart sells by the yard) that I could just stick the seed to and run it down thru a hole and to the bottom of the channel. That batting makes a great wick or capillary mat.
Take a look at TC's brilliant NFT cup scheme here.

I have a bio-filter and I still see a lot of suspended solids come thru (especially when it is bumped or tilted or just looked at funny) - though they are very fine solids, any roots in the path will grab on to those and there will be a tendency to build up. For that reason I am holding off on my own NFT and DWC grand plans until I have gravel to catch those. Use your own judgment, and post your results!

I'm taking that advice and adding a "gravel box" to my current idea. I've started a new thread in Members Systems to document my progress.