Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi!

I have been fiddling with some ideas of how to expand the volume of a little fish pond that I have in the back of my home in New York City while trying to get some veggies out of the process. I've been reading about aquaponics for a while now and had dabbled in hydroponics about 10 years ago and then I found this great website full of great ideas and pictures! My aquaponics setup is kind of weird and I must admit I had a lot of fun building it. At first I thought about using regular tote containers to make a deep water channel type satellite extension of my pond's volume and then the next thing I knew I was having so much fun cutting pvc and thinking about this that I just got carried away and built a very odd looking monstrosity!

So here is the pond in the winter, it's about 100 gallons/ 378 litres:



Here is the pond in the spring:




The gold fishies:




I never do any tests but I have grown a gigantic nasturtium vine out of it with just the roots growing over the pieces of rock that the water falls over and I am constantly exchanging the water (by the bucket(s) full to water the figs,raspberries,blueberries,strawberries,hardy kiwi vine, persimmon, cherry tree, on a daily basis during the spring/summer so I am almost certain that I have plenty of nutrients floating around in the water b/c even after I do all of this I get sludge like algae growing all over the rocks/moss that I have growing. I basically want to to expand the volume of water using some sort of deep water culture technique and my option at the time was to use home depot buckets priced at around $3.40 (pail + lid) and pvc and a bit of 400 grade stainless steel food grade scrubber pads as a media for bacteria to grow on.

Here is the monster that has grown out of my imagination! I still have to build/move some things to make sure the pump is strong enough (600+ gph rio 2100 pump) to move water through 1" pvc. I did some calculations and I think I am good but still nothing beats that feeling of knowing it works by seeing it with my own eyes. Here is what I plan on growing my plants out of:

6x buckets @ approximately 5 gallons per bucket: 30 gallons/113 litres



closeup of the buckets:

The inlet is on the left and the outlet (using overflow) is on the right.






I plan on building a wooden garden box with a pond liner, placing the AP inside the garden box and then filling the surrounding orange monster with soil for insulation as it will be in full sunlight and to grow some sort of perennial (perhaps a creeping thyme) so that the AP doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. I already built a 26" high 36"x48" wooden table so that the water will be returned to the pond using gravity. I might also get a 10w air pump and place air stones in the bottoms of each bucket if the roots don't get enough air but I think (hope) it will be fine b/c I have the waterfall running 24/7 during the spring/summer/fall and there is a great deal of surface area that the water travels over (rock and moss) before returning to the pond surface. I might put the AP pump close to the surface of the water so that Dissolved oxygen levels are the highest (and hopefully not as much fish poop will get pulled into the AP pump filter) while the waterfall pump is on the bottom of the pond.

Any thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Any input is welcome and thanks for putting up so much information all over this forum! I find myself getting sucked into reading and looking at pics for hours at a time!

Mike

p.s. these are the seeds I might try to plant (minus the corn)


and the limited amount of space that I have to work in:

Hi mike welcome to ap madness you know now you have started theres no turning back

I love the pond and using glass bricks what a great idea i bet that gives a lot of people ideas
enjoy the ride

Thanks F&F I've had a madness for water/fish since I was little... When I was about 3-4 years old I started digging up the old asphalt in the alleyway with my hands and making gigantic puddles hoping fish would appear... haha I was singlehandedly responsible for destroying the public alleyway and it had to be repaired... good thing only 2-3 neighbors knew about it and didn't rat me out until 20+ years later!

I saw what you did with the tires and props with recycling them in such a nice way! I've been lurking on the internet for a few years now reading about all the fantastic things people are doing to not only recycle waste (using dirt filled used tires to build walls for homes built into sides of hills) as well as sustainable ways for feeding oneself+others. I recently stumbled upon this forum after a buddy of mine decided to mess around with AP. He lives in washington i'm in NY and I showed him a few pics and chatted with him about some of the stuff I read and voila he too got the bug!

In regard to the glass blocks, I got the idea after thinking about how my bro had a kid that was about to be born and I tried to look at the yard from the perspective of a mini curious child... I figured it might fascinate him if he could see the goldfish at eye level since he wouldn't be tall enough to look in for a few years. It's kind of creepy at times when I am in the backyard and it seems like the fish are all congregated at the glass blocks just watching... waiting... lurking until I throw food at them!

I get so envious seeing all the large projects the people on this forum have taking place! I have no idea what kind of load the top of my garage can bear and that is the only thing that stops me from putting AP up on there with a gravity drain down to giant covered FTs under the wooden deck in the yard. It would be covered to prevent any leftover chemicals from leaking into the water that might still be in old pressure treated lumber that was used in building the deck.

Anyways, Thank you for the warm welcome!

Hay there and Welcome!!!!

I LOVE the glass blocks in the fish pond!!!!! Please tell us about the construction of that water feature. How did you seal it? It's really cool!!!

Interesting plans there with the buckets and stuff. I'll be interested to see how it all goes once installed. Very unique design there.

As to the roof of the garage. Well if you don't think you would trust putting gravel and/or DWC up there because of weight. What about some NFT channels or pipes? They don't need to be terribly heavy. But it would require a pump that could move water up to the roof.

Anyway, welcome and may your veggies do as well as those gold fish!

Thank you! The pond was originally much smaller and then built up... It was originally built in ~2001 and looked like a Gaudy nightmare!


Sometimes I laugh when I am reminded of how it once looked but usually I just put my palm on my face.

I had decided that it was time to make it a little deeper due to the fish being caught by the local alleycat. It's basically sand/cement used to join the cobblestones and glass blocks (purchased from the local Home Depot) with a thin coating of regular portland cement. I'm worried about the portland cement after seeing creative1's post and mentioning how wet cement doesn't bond well to dry cement! It's been like this for about 2 years now and we haven't had any leaks. Every few days (in the summer) I have to add a little water due to some of the water being lost from evaporation when it gets really hot outside. The waterfall is made from rocks that I brought home from a friend's father's land in rural New York. He laughed when I asked if I could grab a few for the road and his response was "take them all" as they would interfere with anything he wanted to do with the land such as cutting the grass or a bit of farming.

For the waterfall; I basically just laid them down so that the surface of all the rocks were slanted in towards the pond. I use a Rio 2100 pump that runs water from the bottom of the pond through a tube to the top of the pond where gravity does it's job. I was very meticulous about making sure the slabs of stone were laid so that the water covers as much surface area as possible. It's small enough where it became almost like a little toy model for me. I even replanted moss from around the neighborhood. The kind of moss that you see growing in between cracks of cement b/c I had this idea of using it as it grows and dies as a possible medium for nitrosomonas and nitrobacter to cycle the water. When the weather is around 40F (4.4C) the moss takes off and turns a lush green and grows along the rocks/under the thin layer of water. When the weather warms up the slugs come out and start munching on it so I've been trying to plan on getting some tree frogs indigenous to New York and seeing if they will survive in the yard. Their is also a sludge like sheet of algae/bacteria that grows on the rocks when the weather really heats up and I'm hoping that hooking up the pond to the AP that I made will help eliminate that from happening.

Here is a higher resolution picture where you can see the "stuff" growing on the rocks. I find it amazing how nature will just do it's "thing" if/when given the oppurtunity. The nasturtium vine on the bottom left wound up getting huge. Such a great vine. I even taught my neighbor's little 4 year old that the flowers are edible and for a while I would hear "NO DON'T EAT THE FLOWER" as she would basically shock her mother's friend when they saw her munching on the little orange flowers for the first time.



I have a flickr page with more details if you are interested but it's not really about aquaponics so much as it is my attempt to try and see how much variety I could get to grow in the concrete jungle.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37262538@N03/sets/72157617604019935/




Here is a link to a video of the fishies swimming around... They were initially those little unhealthy feeder goldfish that you can buy from a petshop. You know the ones that cost pennies each.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37262538@N03/3723662649/in/set-72157623405271260/




I hope my veggies are as forgiving as pet store feeder goldfish! I thought about using hybrid striped bass for this grow zone due to (from what I had read) ability to survive in a giant range of water temperatures.

Here is a link to the pdf where this tidbit of data is quoted:


UC Davis and Ohio state have put out a tremendous amount of info in regard to AP in the states. I've even thought about messing with Giant macrobrachium rosenbergii prawns but I really have a knack for getting ahead of myself since I doubt I can provide a suitable environment and I can't convince myself that it's even worth growing just a handful of them for a few months before they'd get eaten or just die.

Just the look of them fascinates me!


So yeah back on track...

I am nervous about using NFT channels due to my mini pond not having a lot of volume and the water temp can fluctuate by a few degrees (in the shade) just from the temperature of the air. The roof has this very reflective silver paint and we see the alleycat sleeping in the corner of the roof getting some sun in the dead of winter when it is not windy but definitely below freezing. I'll have to put some more thought into it. I'd love to increase the reservoir of water and do something like NFT channels on the garage roof! Although I'd have to plant something that wouldn't need daily harvesting as I don't know if I'd be up for climbing up a ladder to harvest a few veggies everyday.

Well, hopefully the weather clears up. We just got walloped by a Nor'easter and it's keeping me from waterproffing a wooden table that I made to hold the AP before I can finally seal it up and cycle it etc before connecting it to the pond.

The pond is in the top right of the pic. The AP kit is actually buried under the snow where my dog is uhh helping to cycle it... He is my little liquid fertilizing machine for the plants that grow in the dirt.



And the table... It's just awaiting a nice day so it can get a coat or two of polyurethane.

And I thought my water freezing was pretty tough to cope with. How do you keep the bacteria alive when it goes sub zero?

I'll be honest. I don't know. I read that Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter are everywhere. Lurking... waiting for the right conditions to multiply and survive especially in New York with the high amount of pollution... they live on everything outdoors. I will tell you that when spring rolls around and the water temp goes above 45 degrees I start feeding the fish a high wheat based formula of Hikari fish pellets and I start using some of the pond water for the container plants that I have in the yard while replacing it with some fresh tap water that I left standing for a few days in a bucket in hopes of the Chlorine evaporating out of it. I know it sounds a little cooky but I'm sort of trying to be a little more unscientific about it. Otherwise I'll turn into a raging control freak and wind up not enjoying it. I might start whimsically buying digital PH/DO/ etc meters for a little 100 gallon feature.



I did turn on the waterfall a few times between november and now for no longer than a day b/c I was being a little opportunistic to take advantage of a warm day figuring that I might be able to raise the DO levels a bit. And so far I fed the fish once since I shut the pond down in november/december. Feeder Goldfish must be the ultimate beginners fish hybridized over their existence to take a beating.

Oh and I use one of these to keep a hole in the ice for when the surface freezes over:


I could have sworn I payed much less than what I now see on these websites.
http://www.aqua-mart.com/flph.html

OMG this is amazing! The water garden looks like a veritable work of art and so natural, just like it grew there, I also love the viewing panel.
The snow covering the outdoor area is nothing I can say that I have ever experienced, you must just love it when the weather warms and the seasons change.
Love it- Faye.

Oh noooo gemmell!! I was looking at a post by jaymie and I noticed that you linked a fish and it reminded me of one of my goldfish that got dropsy in november then died... It literally looked like this:


it bloated up and the scales puffed out so I googled dropsy and aquaponics and came across this site

http://athoughtadrift.com/gemmell/2009/02/12/aquaponics-adventure-mark-ii-part-viii

and I read something about nickel and lowered fish immune systems and then realized it is your blog ... lol... and that one of the 400 grades of stainless steel that I plan on using as a biomedia for my AP has a little bit of nickel in it...

Ugh I am having a facepalm moment

Is there any way to just let the system take care of itself and be balanced? I added this to the pond last spring to help increase the fauna in the system. I figured the more "stuff" in the pond, the more of a natural balance can be worked out. I really didn't want to try and create an ultra sterile environment as it would be outside and pathogens are usually the first to take hold on a system if there isn't anything else to utilize the resources.

http://fungi.com/mycogrow/index.html

I even wrote an email to the company asking if it was bad for fish and they said it's just a mix of the normal non pathogenic beneficial bacteria/fungi found in the wild so it wouldn't be bad. Pretty much every plant including moss has some sort of relationship with endo/ectomychorrizhal fungi.

D:

Thank you for the compliment Faye.

Natural was my goal and I am glad that it is what people think when they see it. I learned so much about moss last spring. It's like one of natures little heroes that some people see as a nuisance. I remember my father used to throw bleach on moss that just started to grow on concrete. Pillow moss just happens to favor the environment created by deteriorating cement combined with acid rain etc and I guess he thought it caused the deteriorating cement. Perhaps this thinking is perpetuated by the association of deteriorating rooftops that have conditions suitable to moss which is why the moss spores take hold there and grow so well.

I found this pic of some vegetative wall which is located at the Quai Branly museum:
http://www.paris-photos.org/museum-quai-branly.php

It's almost like a living building replaced whatever was cut down.



I get so envious of the growing conditions that I've seen in so many pics in this forum. As much as fun as NYC can be the winter really sucks imho but I must say I really do enjoy the explosion of life once spring rolls around. It's a seasonal reminder of that cycle of rebirth. One annoying thing though is the explosion of the slug and mosquito population. I've toyed around with the idea of planting temperate carnivorous plant seeds to deal with the gnats that lay eggs and swarm around the pond as it has a constant bit of humidity. Hah but even that taught me a lesson about why I used to get harassed by a swarm of gnats in the field during little league baseball games when I started to sweat. Thank goodness they never laid eggs on me! /shudder

I also need to get my hands on some indigenous tree frog eggs/tadpoles as a natural way to deal with slugs since I'm certain NYC's frog population is lacking and I won't be seeing any anytime soon unless I bring them back!

Ugh can't wait for spring!



The water is 36F / 2. 2C



The surface of the heater is 65.5F / 18.6 C with a little bit of java moss sitting on top of it througout the winter to see how it fares



The goldfish seem to enjoy staying under the pond de-icer (perhaps for a little column of warm water.

Looks like you are doing a great job working with what you got. One step at a time anyway. That water feature is really great though.

Is that a fish-cam off to the right side?

I agree with your seed mix. I want to try a couple of melons when I get going. They should vine out nicely from your base pots. Or set up a pair of nested HD buckets as a subirrigated wicking pot, squashes like these. Feed the AP water thru them (instead of the Earthbox-style standing water) and they should Explode in vine growth. I'd like to see what you do with the vines, training them around your space and supporting the melons/cukes/gourds. Cantaloupe is said to do well.

Another thought... the corner pond is very appealing as several have said. Have you thought of carrying on the triangular motif instead of the square grid?

Really cool so far. Follow your inclinations...

Rick

I only have 1 corner for making anything triangle shaped and the pond is in it.

What kind of media do you use for a subirrigated wicking pot in AP systems? Maybe this is naive of me but I'm not comfortable using soil and the earthbox design to my understanding uses potting soil/dirt with a space for water and the DIY ones i've seen use a little cup of dirt as the wicking agent. I've heard of wicking agents being used in the growingpower AP systems where they let worms eat the solid fish waste then take the castings, wrap them around some coconut fiber? then somehow wick the AP water up to the pots but I found the details on the growingpower website lacking. Perhaps it ensures them having customers that will pay to see how they do it through one of their seminars... /shrugs

I've seen some videos such as Fresh and Food Inc (and dozens of more detailed vids) and they are more like videos that showcase tidbits and make you feel good about sustainable agriculture while fearing monoculture but aren't really meant as instruction manuals