Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thaaat's right, the D stands for Dani; I'm just used to the nickname because no one in my poor little Mexican town (village?) could pronounce Danielle the way I wanted them to (the French way!). Anyhow, as I'm sure some of you are aware, I am currently in the planning stages of my FIRST aquaponics system! Also considering I live in a fairly small apartment with little-to-no room for anything besides furniture, I am a little strapped...for room, anyway...cash is another story.

In my bedroom there is a very large, very GORGEOUS window that lets in a WHOLE lotta light. And also since I'm on the 3rd floor, there's not much blocking that light besides tree branches (and I'm sure many of you know how effective that is ). Currently there isn't really any furniture in there right now so that gives me the ability to plan a little larger. We were, at some point, going to put a Queen-sized bed in there, plus 2 desks (it would be a squeeze, but we'd manage), but at this point, one of our desks wound up in the livingroom, along with our bed which sits next to the fireplace, while the other desk remains wholely incomplete because the manufacturer drilled a hole in the wrong place, so now I can't finish putting the shelving on the damn thing.

I was hoping I could utilize the window for all it's gorgeous light and create MY take on the New York Window Farms, and instead of using hydroponic water, why not employ the use of a dozen or so very colorful fish? So, I did a little search on aquaponics window designs (this was a while ago), and found this lovely number HERE! My only concern thus far is expenses. The US is about to do their yearly tax...thing...and I reckon my tax return would be around $400-$600 smackaroos, so that SHOULD be enough. Actually, that will be, the calculated cost for 2 of the systems (one for each window...it's a wide window) would be roughly $300.

The window itself is a little low to the ground and only gives me about a foot or so for fishtanks, but luckily, they make tanks that only come up to 1'1". Each tank will be about 27-30 gallons. The systems will not be linked in any way, so if one fails, the other one won't overflow and give me reason to explain to my apartment manager why there's a giant water-caused hole on the third floor apartment in the bedroom. Also, I've only ever had fish once in my life (I was 5...) and they all ate eachother, so I never really had much to worry over when it came to pumps. What kind of pump should I be looking into that would move roughly 30 gallons of water upwards about 8 or so feet? And how many times should the entire tank be cycled per day? I've heard that with goldfish, you have to cycle it at minimum 10 times or something like that. What kind of power should I be going for? Any American brands I should be wary of? Pricing? Yeah, lots of questions, I'll have more (AND PIX!) later on (once I get a camera)

Auf wiedersehen!
Miz_D


Edit: Whoop, my html coding days are coming back to haunt me! lol

Hey Dani:

Jay had a thread on here describing that window system, I'll try to find it for you.

If you want to communicate your ideas to the forum a really good way is to use Google Sketchup which is a free 3D modeling program that is very easy to use. It makes figuring out your layout faster and easier. And we can help you with ideas that way.

Found it:

viewtopic.php?p=42382#p42382

AHAH! So that's the guy! His photos won't load for some reason, but yes, thank you! I didn't know he was part of the forum! Holy simolians!

And thank you again for making that suggestion, but I'm two steps ahead of you, hon Already got it downloaded and am working on it...not right now as I have to run to work, BUT hopefully when I get home I'll have some spare time (aside from filling knitting orders for customers) to finish up the sketch and then I'll be able to slap it up on the board. Thank you again!

G'Day Dani, can't see why it wouldn't work although it would be far easier to go with some of these if you could get them.

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/shop. ... egory_id=8

Hi Miz_D.......



This is why it's preferable for people to upload photos to the forum as part of their post, rather than linking to pictures in photobucket or other online photo storage sites. Sooner or later those pictures elsewhere can disappear.