Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What container are you using for the flood and drain beds? I apologize if you have already stated this. And how deep are they?
Beautiful setup!

This has quickly become my favorite thread although I'll have to read it several times to absorb it all. My hats off to you Ryan (and Rupe) - great looking system!

I'm going to ask the Mods to split the nitrogen/phosphorus/potassium posts off into a dedicated thread...

Both for further discussion... and for any experimental results...

Great work Ryan, I haven't been on here much over Christmas and missed this great system and thread, nice work, I'm now following what your doing with great interest...

I've split off the nutrient discussion bits to here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8781

Ralath- Ive got a couple different containers. 2 of them are 4" deep hydro trays that are 4' x 2' (got them damaged for like 5 bucks each years ago, have another 8 in the attic), 1 is a 6" deep hydro tray that is 4' x 2' and then the 4 on the ground are 3' x 2' x I want to say 4" or 5" deep. The plants in the 4 flood and drain systems on the ground are not connected to a continous flow through the system, I fill the resevoirs (~25gal) with compost tea brewed (in a trash can) from the sludge I remove from the filtration system and usually drain and refill it once every 3-4 weeks depending on the crop and how the plants look. It only takes a few days to brew the tea so it's not too much trouble.

Thanks again for all the nice replies and nice to hear from you EB, glad you guys like it. Look forward to reading more about your builds as well. The more thinking minds the better!

I took a couple more pictures of some of the fish:

A good size Crappi that is getting nice and fat


Sometimes they sit near the surface of the water and their fins will stick out above the surface. Looks pretty cool:


This last pic you can see my big white Koi and 3 bass. They like to hang with the koi.


Weather warmed up this week so everythings growing like crazy again but im sure it will slow back down with the next cold front. Only a couple more months and we should be in the clear!

A couple harvests from over the weekend:

Kohl Rabi

Snow Peas

Crappi(speck, speckled perch)

Baby Broccoli head:

Ryan, great system and great pics. Nice crappie, what size where they when you first put in your system? And I was curious what you fed your crappie?
Thanks

Thanks JD. When I stocked them they were around 0.4-0.5lb each and I grew them out to just about a pound each(some over/under). Ive noticed the fingerling sized crappi are not very hearty so I went with a larger fingerling(if you can still call it that) and grew out from there. I fed them Aquamax omnivore diet and they grew pretty good. I was a little on the heavy side as far as fish load so I figured it was time for a taste test. And booooooy do I LOVE crappi! Definately one of my favorite FW fish.

Thank you Ryan. Yes crappie are one of my favorites too.

Yw JD. And sorry about the 2 redundant pictures there guys, been sick and forgot I had posted them. We had a hard freeze last night so I harvested a bunch of my Swiss Chard. Ended up being 12 lbs worth and filled up a 30 gal garbage bag! Gonna be eating good all week

I thought I would post up a few more pictures so here we go!

Here is a picture of my mixed lettuce bed. It is 2' x 3' and planted very densly. I was chopping this like grass every 2 weeks and it would grow back within the next 2 weeks. I had 3 harvests from the bed and decided to harvest the entire thing this weekend:


Here is my lettuce processing station. Dunked into the trashcan several times, then into the drying bag. i dont have a lettuce dryer so I sewed up a mesh bag with fishing line, put the lettuce in and swung it around my head like a mad man. 1 minute later it was ready to be bagged


Here is a picture of one of my troughs with Brussle sprouts in the rear and Chard in the front:


Close up...definately getting bigger!


Wall of snow peas (producing pretty good now)


Purple and red radishes:


Another Kohl Rabi harvest:


First harvest out of about 8 broccoli plants. This one finished quick and is a little on the small side but not bad for a 4" deep gravel bed:


Thats all for now!

good stuff, man

Nice work Ryan...

Good to see people getting a harvest from their systems....