Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey Janet the system is looking real good. Now i want to find soem of those rubbermaids. Another Idea for those of you looking for fish containers try looking in to the new large plastic garbage bins. They use to sell them at home depot. You know the ones that look like the usually dumpsters but made of plastic. You would have to burry them (janet you would need to use the chainsaw) but that would do the trick to support them.

OK Janet, can you tell me exactly what you're using there? I'm trying to convince my wife still (thought i had it settled:), and could use some back-up. What size tubs are you using, what pump, and if you could even do a little schematic it would help a bunch...

I'm just eying these pictures windows, drooling over the thought.
Your setup would be great over here I think.
Thanks again!

LOL, nvm! Somehow i skipped the whole middle of this thread and never saw the schematics you already made! I would like to know some sizes though, if even just the measurements of your tub and tanks.

Sorry 'bout that!

Hi bhsx,
I have more detail earlier in this thread. However, to re-cap:
Design is modular and redundant for simplicity. I use 1 pump per grow bed: 190 gph, 19watt magdrives on timers. btw, they are choked back a bit, too. Each pump is on 15 minutes each hour, and staggered so the tank level doesn't vary too much from filling all grow beds at once. Growbeds are flood and drain via auto-siphon. GB media is 50/50 expanded clay and gravel with the clay on the bottom. Fish tank is 150 gal/570L Rubbermaid stock tank, 24in/60mm deep with 3 Rubbermaid stock tanks for grow beds at 50gal/189L, 12in/30mm deep each. Tank:Bed is 1:1, or maybe more like 1:1.2 since I don't want to fill the tank to the brim. Heaters are 2 submersible units at 250W each. Hope that's enough to get to 85 degrees for the tilapia. I'm holding 75 degrees just fine right now. Anticipated yield of fish is 35lb/16KG liveweight per year, plus veggies, flowers, herbs, and wasabi. Although since I'm going to use tilapia now instead of yellow perch, I might get 2 crops of fish a year instead of one. At any rate, anticipated max fishload is 35 pounds at a time.

If you want me to send you bigger pictures, let me know. I scale stuff down to posts since we are limited to 356K.

Crossing posts! Dimensions for various Rubbermaid tanks are here.
http://www.stockyardsupply.com/page11/index2.html

So it's been strangely warm and wet this winter, and today is no exception. I went out to the mailbox to send off some bills, stepping around the puddles and worms in the driveway. An hour later, it dawned on me. There were -earthworms- crawling around my driveway. Earthworms! For me! In January! So I grabbed a cereal bowl from the kitchen cupboard (got that, 'Ell?), and a toothpick to try to gently lift them off the asphalt. Didn't want to squish them, of course. I rounded up about 10 of them, and dropped 5 each into two of the three growbeds. The third growbed isn't really planted yet, and I didn't want the worms starving to death on me. A few minutes later, they had worked their way below the stones. Yippee! And since it takes -any- two earthworms to ummm...tango, I should have baby worms happening eventually.

The other exciting thing is what was gracing our salads last night: pea shoots from the AP system! Our first edibles! Even little Miss "I don' like salad, Mommy" ate her pea shoots. (That would be Elise, age 4. Kira, age 6.5 loves salads.) I did have to reassure them that we were not eating fish poop, just pea shoots. They were very tasty, something like a cross between raw asparagus and snow peas. So I planted some more. I think they'd be good in a fast stirfry with sesame seeds, too. I also planted some bean seeds. My nitrates are starting to rise (40, now), and I need some more vegetation.

As I've aluded to in another thread, most plant growth has been lackluster, with the exception of the wasabi, peas and bok choy. I added some greensand -- about 3 small handfuls in all -- a few days ago. All of a sudden, I'm noticing new growth on a lot of things. Greensand provides trace elements, including some iron. My theory is that a new system takes some time to build up complete nutrients, and a little boost might be needed. So we'll see if the radishes, beets and lettuce get with the program now.

Hi janet nice setup everything falls into place after a while [questian whats green sand and is it safe for fish!]

Greensand is a fine, dark green sand that is used in organic gardening as a supplement. It is an iron potassium silicate, found as a sedimentary rock. It has as many as 22 trace minerals.

Nice, JP I love it.

yeh, AP growth seems to do the "yep, i'm ready now" and TAKE OFF

So we add tooth picks to the AP tool box now - did you return the cereal bowl back to its place of origin (after cleaning it )

Here's a devious insect killing method for you JP, but you need a greenhouse....

Close everything and let the temp hit 45 (113) then open it up again. Thrip, aphids, fungus gnats, white butterflies, all dead.

And the plants don't seem to care, but I only let it get that hot for 1/2 hour.

Worms in the beds is great, they gaurantee somethings moving the bottom solids about for me.

My indoor system has moved outdoors voluntarily. I got no light there, well, lot less than I thought, so I let the tommies go out the window, (and now up to my house roof!) and now a bean has followed them, so I have lots of toms to eat (tom plant also in greenhouse)

Pics a bit old I'll update in my threads before too long.

I was supposed to clean the cereal bowl, 'Ell? Yes, it's back in the cabinet. I -am- the boss in my household

AA, I like the idea of giving the insects heatstroke. Don't think I can pull that off in the dead of winter, even though it is warm. I'll keep that trick for summer. It might work since I can shut off the sunroom from the house, and close down the ventilation. Hmmm. Love the 'escapees' you have.

congratulations on finishing your leg Janet!

You are a Leg End!

Taking lessons are we ("groan")

congrats Janet