Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

G'day AP family..after much stalking of this forum I have finally joined. My own system is 8 weeks old and after loads of impatient fiddling, fussing, general time wasting, fish watching and gurgling water listening it has just cycled..somewhat... I have followed none of the long established conventions....gone at it a bit cowboy like and no doubt the system will bite me later on, but that is the guilty pleasure of the backyard warrior.

My fish tank is a tiled roman like water feature I built a few years back. Up until just recently I could'nt use it due to a neighbours bloody paperbark hanging over it filling it with seeds and leaves. The paperbark met an untimely end and the AP fishpond was born!!

Pond is 1400 litres and has 10 silver perch.

All up about 300 litres of grow pots, floaty raft thingys and bio filters.

The grow pots are on a flood drain system..more flood than drain really...about 30 mins flood and 10 mins drain (due to a shitty unreliable hpm timer)..I know it doesn't follow the oft quoted 15/45 cycle but it works for me.
Here are some pics. Got a good cycling graph that I will post later also

VERY nice looking system you have there and i loooooove the two outdoor ovens

are you using your pots there as GBs?? if you are and you want to add more fish, perhaps you could invest in a bio-filter, so then you could do more fish, but keep small volumes of GB and not loose the look of your system

also have you got any pics of how te pots drain back into the FT???

dont worry about the 30/10 bbit, whatevr works is fine
and last but not least welcome to the forum

hahah what FB Said, although i have 1 bit of advice...

if that cats not a statue...... its 'a' huntin perch!!!


Welcome mate Nice Feature... maybe u could search for a thread called "Are All ap systems ugly" and post a few pics......


back to beer

Cheers Freo Boy, Jamey..!
Glad you like the pics. The pots are grow beds.. 6 of them about 30 litres each with a standpipe system in each. They are small but kinda cute..each one is its own mini garden.

My block is terraced.. the house and fish tank sits about 2 metres above the backyard so finances pending in the future I will expand system to include a couple of BYAP growbeds and sump on the lower section pumping up to the fish pond and gravity feed back.
At the moment still very early days into the hobby/obsession!!

Yeah I love my outdoor grill and oven too...a whole lot more than my neighbours and there clothsline I suspect..lol

Very nice looking system and I love the outdoor ovens.

very nice simple idea
done well
congrats and welcome
mabe instead of single pots you could try planter boxes??
what u think

Very well done! Nice and tidy...and stylish to say the least.

Hi and welcome to a great place to learn and help others....

I love the look of your AP but i am more interested in your Ovens... I have just bought 2 pallets of Kiln bicks (cheap cheap, brick works closing down heheheh ) and I was wondering if the round oven was first then found a bigger oven was better?? therefore the big square one?? So which do you find a better oventhe roman square one or the round one??

Funny, just showed your awesome roman mosaic to the missus and she said "so his wife made him build a good looking one then..."
Silver Perch Pizza should be nice....(with basil)

Welcome Pyro Monkey! Started with a bang!

Hey thanks to everyone for the warm welcome!!

Fishlips..yep thought about planters..after I had already built the first 2 pots! Because the AP setup is so close to the house and looked upon from my main living area the primary concern was to make it aesthetic. The teracotta pots were convenient because I could get 30L black poly buckets that fit perfectly inside. These don't leak!
I realised after trawling through that money hoover Bunnings that there are a whole variety of black polly rectangle tubs that I could have used and then build a nice wooden box for each one with jarrah decking to tie in with the deck at the base of the pond....Bugger!

Hey Double Decker!! Wood ovens are as bloody addictive and obsessive as aquaponics!!!
Here are a couple of photos for you from when I built the pizza oven. The other construction is not really an oven more a outside fireplace...we use it for grilling and spit roasting. If you can get it Banksia wood is the best for grilling over!!

The pizza oven was built over a collapsable wooden form. Each layer of bricks is cut tapered to minimise mortar gaps. I have since put a new floor with a sheet of ceramic fibre insulation and thinner bricks on top of the old floor to reduce the ceiling height. Also the original full thickness bricks on the floor were also taking too long to heat up.

Thats a really nice looking oven build there pyro, but the AP setup is a work of art! I especially love the optional bird scarer, a must have

Get some more of those pots and a couple bigger GB in there, you're bound to do it so better done sooner, believe you me you will never be satisfied with such little growing space.

Yep.. all over it like a fat kid on a cupcake! It started as a means of filtering the pond so I could keep a couple of koi in there...then of course I stumbled across aquaponics..the koi turned into silver perch and the whole focus changed from a little filtration to a vege garden!!!

I have to move/or install another grow bed soon any way coz as we head into winter the light on that side of the house starts to drop off and the veges will struggle.

pyro...nice pond and ovens

Where did you get the frame work for your domed oven?

Mate I made it...it was a massive head f to work out. If you want to build an oven I would recommend a tunnel type (size of a 200L drum cut length ways) heaps heaps heaps (get the idea) easier to build and just as effective as a pizza oven.