Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Do you think worms could be added to the towers. They may extend the life of the media if they can stop it from cloging up.

Chatting with Nate today, he mentioned that last time he re-planted some towers he found worms and baby worms living in the media. I've added a few worms to some of my towers.

As to extending the life of the media. Nate has mentioned to me that the media can be pulled after harvest and left to dry out a bit before pressure washing which is pretty effective at cleaning the media if it's needed. I don't think clogging is what determines the life of the media.

Hum, Nate you mentioned that the media is recyclable. How would one go about recycling it? I know the curb side recycling here only takes #1 and #2 labeled plastics.

(Not that I expect to ever want to recycle the inserts I have since I'm sure I'll come up with other uses for the media when it is no longer useful for the towers.

yeah your right Rup it was a pretty bold statement.....I was a little bit excited after getting throught the whole thread....

It is a very interesting farmers market style system which is what I will be looking at setting up soon as a bit of a side business to the plumbing. Any one know who I should be speaking to in terms of BYAP system sales and installations in Melbourne. I have the advertising part worked out as I often get chatting to clients in my everyday business about AP and have found a huge interest and would love to be able to offer people more.
(sorry for the short hijack perhaps anyone with info can pm me)

Talk to Dean at Growfresh Aquaponics.... http://www.growfresh-aquaponics.com.au/

Rupert- thanks for the photos- I looked at all of those systems during the design process for my towers. They all have thier strong points for sure. You're correct, plumbing is the real issue with many of them. That's one of the reasons I designed my towers to have some flexibility in drainage/catchment systems. You're right, the market system will determine whether or not these towers will work.

Dufflight- TC's right, I have incorporated worms and they seem to work well. At my last harvest I was finding quite a few baby worms- I only put adults in. I was pretty excited. (sad when one of the most exciting parts of my week is finding baby worms, eh?)

TC- we expect that most users will want to use our media for a variety of purposes. Right now, to recycle used inserts they'll have to be returned to us. I know this is an inconvenience, so we're going to offer discounts on future purchases to make this easier on folks and to encourage the reuse/recycling of the inserts. Not ideal, but most recycling facilities aren't willing to take the insert (even though it's a #1 recyclable). We're also developing a couple other products that we can integrate the used/damaged media into. Reusing the media in other products is the end goal since it can still be useful and prolonging the life of a material is always more efficient and responsible than replacing it.

Oops- actually I should have said that I've seen both of the systems (vertigro and stackers)in your pictures from the US- I haven't seen the vertical one you mentioned from Australia there- I'd love to see more photos. . .

Now here is a picture I hope will make Nate smile


The marigolds definitely seem to be faster growing

One thing I've been wondering about is germination. Do you throw seeds in and expect them to reach sideways for the light? Or are you planting seedlings in the grow media?

It is generally seedlings planted in the towers.

Though I have planted a few seeds in the tops of towers and had them germinate and grow.

where did you guys buy the grow towers at??? and what kind of grow media is in there this seems to be something i might want to check into ...

Nate developed the towers.
Hopefully there will be some links soon where you will be able to buy the towers.

Aquadave: go back throught the whole thread and it answers all your questions, and trust me its a very good thread to read and see the progress of Nates design.

Does your estore deliver to Aus, Nate??? and how far from production and sale are you??

BNDYBEAR- i'm looking at Aus. deliveries and they seem to be cost prohibitive- essentially shipping is a bit more than the cost of the tower. I'm trying to figure this one out and see what it would be to ship by container- i'm new to all this so it's going a little slow!
We're currently starting production, although we're having some problems with our website stuff. Hopefully we'll get it figured out soon.

TAMO- I germinate seeds in peat pellets, or 6-packs with peat or growers mixes or on rockwool and then incorporate the seedlings into the towers.

in the meantime, the herb trials are going well. cilantro absolutely loves the towers. my other herbs are a bit slower- i got poor germination on them, maybe i need new seed.

The strawberries are cranking too. two of the towers are suffering from bad heat damage- my greenhouse has been overheating the last few weeks but the plants lower down and closerto the water are doing well in the nice cool shade. all of my plants have around 4-8 fruit developing and another 4-8 flowers. I'm having a hard time keeping up with manual pollinating- something that's obvious from some of my poorly pollinated, misshapen fruit.

here's a couple of recent photos- man it's been hard to find the time to post lately. The strawberries are doing well, I'm taking 1lb to 1.5lbs off of them every day now. I'm about strawberried out. Monday (i think) I got 3.5 lbs off of them. . . I've been giving away strawberries left and right. I'm finding they make good bribes. . .
Here's some pictures: The berries are nicely sized for the most part. I'm not enough of an expert to snip the right flowers to get monster berries, so I just let them produce as much as they want. here's my 3.5 lb harvest.
Here's a little better closeup of what the towers are doing. I'm a terrible photographer.

a couple more:
and