Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone. Long time fishkeeper here, just recently turned on to the possibilities of APs.

I may play with a mini-raft idea on my current tank as an experiment, but long term I'd really like to do it up right. Lot's of education first though!

Looking forward to learning from everyone on this great forum!

welcome but we only share if you promise to post photo...
...and become addicted like we all are

I think the addiction goes without saying...once you have joined the forum it is too late!

Not the best of pics, but here are my current tanks. Both house Mlawi Mbuna (rock dwelling fish from one of the African Rift lakes).

The 40g is a breeding colony of Afra. They're shy and I'd just fed them, so sorry for the less than stellar shot there.

The 75g is a much more boisterous crew, as you can probably tell...

Welcome aboard.

How'd you get turned on to AP? And to BYAP? The NY Times article? Just curious.

CB in SC

Oddly enough, no. Though apparently my timing would make one assume that. I did run into the Times article a few days after discovering this community and various other resources.

To be honest, I just stumbled into it. It's a combination of factors:

1. I've been doing a lot of real estate research lately, which makes a renter ponder all the things they could do if they OWNED their home.
2. Obviously, I already have the fishtanks and am intimately familiar with the issue of nitrate build-up. (years of water changes will drive anyone to look for options, trust me!)
3. I've been thinking more and more about the state of the economy here in the US and our long-term prospects. Obviously I'm not building a bunker and hording food/guns just yet, but various indicators make one want to be that much less reliant on such a fragile integrated economy.
4. In a similar vein, I've definitely developed a pragmatic environmentalist attitude in recent years. Knowing the average piece of food I eat travels 1500 miles or so and uses up so much fuel, the idea of growing my own food as a hobby just seems sensible.
5. Oh, and I do remember reading an article about Growing Power a few months ago. I guess that would be the seed from which all this germinated, so to speak...

Water changes suck!!!! I have only a 10 gallon aquarium indoors but since it only has one NFT tube attached to it so I'm still needing to change out water to keep the nitrates down to a readable level.

I hear you on point number three there MH. It doesn't take long for supermarket shelves to empty if something goes wrong with food supply chains.

When hurricane Rita rolled through here (my first), we left town, but before leaving I went to the local HEB a day before she was due to hit. I was able to find a couple summer sausages and some soda pop, but the shelves were litterally empty. It was an eye opener. The freeways were jammed pack, but we had good maps and got to Dallas via the back roads. It scared the crap out of me, but really turned out to be a non-event in our area. So with hurricane Ike came through we stayed and I was more preparred and had been stocking all season. It paid off, but two weeks without power and having to travel 50 plus miles just to get gas really opened my eyes to how fragile the entire system is. Having stayed through one hurricane, I have little desire to ever do it again. It was the scariest thing I have ever been through. And not just the power of the winds, the way people act in the aftermass is scary.