Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I bet I can save some money on nutrient solutions, and save some hassle with cleaning my Aerogarden every two or three weeks. If I set up a fish tank near it, and grow fish (edible? eh...not so much...) and then pump the water from the tank into the aerogarden each night to fill the tank with water. Then I would re-fill the fish tank with water each night.

Would this work?

Interesting.

I have always wanted a fish tank, now I have a reason to get one!!! And more motivation!

let me know what you all think!

Later,

Jeff Cummings

Hum, I don't know the aerogarden. You need some form of bio-filter somewhere to convert the ammonia through nitrite into nitrate for the plants. Otherwise you will be just doing water changes on the fish tank and having unhappy plants.

Wasn't Sylvia Berstein involved with the "aerogarden" TCL???

Ok, I've been reading a lot of info from this websites INFO pdf section.

So you need a fish tank, a bio-filter tank with media that houses the bacteria, and a plant grow area.

Gotcha.

So what do the bacteria need? If the water drains, will the bacteria die, or is it heat that will kill them? Or are they pretty resistant, and nothing kills them...except chemicals.

Just curious, as there is little info about the bacteria/bio-filter etc so far. Just that they need a lot of surface area, and some systems don't appear to need this part to be separate.

just curious, later guys, off to do more reading,

jeff c

The bacteria will survive for anything up to a week... especially if the media is kept moist....

The bacteria are basically fed by the ammonia waste of the fish.... as part of the "nitrogen cycle"...

Should be info on the above in the FAQ section...

So I've also learned that the bio-filter media could be separate from the fish tank and plant water tank.

How about a bag of sand in a tank or bucket of water? It would provide a lot of surface area, and keeping the sand in a bag would keep it all together.

Or how about a combination of small rocks, large rocks and sand? I would like to use these because I live 1/2 block from the ocean sand! LOL

k i'm searching the forum now for more on people who've done this with sand.

also, keeping the fish tank and the bio-filter media tank covered is a good thing, right? To prevent evaporation. But of course, the plants need light to grow...I may be able to hook up the fish tank and the bio-filter media tank indoors, and put the plant grow beds outdoors on my balcony in my condo. Then I could rig a pump to deliver the water outdoors and back again through the wall, even when my sliding door is closed.

That sounds crazy? Of course, the whole idea of aquaponics sounds crazy....

....i'll do it !

thanks guys,

jeff c

P.S. My parents, friends and neighbors are definitely going to think that I'm nuts now...

you cant bore holes through the wall! the neighbors will surely think youre mad!! 'hi neighbors, my condo is now a radiator!' lol

you have enthusiasm, keep on reading, dont get too far ahead of yourself, but too bad for you, the seed has been planted, you cant leave ap now.

these old farts around here are addicted slaves to it. by the end of the summer i will join their ranks permanently i reckon.

have fun jeff its a great life hobby.

I can't drill holes in my wall?? Why not? The cable company does !

Oh well...of course I would ask for help in doing that, so maybe there's another way.



Jeff c

How about drilling holes in the neighbors, can we do that?

OceanJeff38, can you show us pics of the aerogarden you want to convert?

I think your better off forgetting about the aerogarden and doing something totally separate.. for those that don;t know what one is:

That is it !

Although my current one is overrun with two balmoral squash plants, that have HUGE leaves, and about 9 or 10 flowers each.

I'm going to let them grow until I have to turn off the lights...then I have to transplant them outside Currently this may be only a few days away, as the leaves keep hitting the lights, and burning parts of the leaves...



I may try again with the Aerogarden, with red peppers, those might do better as they are more low growing...?

Anyways, I don't see why I couldn't use the Aerogarden, at least keep it on the side of the operation, and pour in the occasional run off from the fish tank, or from the bio-filter tank.

But I was planning on growing more than just the Aerogarden which can only house a few plants.

I was planning on having a small grow bed, and growing some plants floating on the surface of the water...with a more extensive grow light system above the whole system.

Covering the fish tank of course.

later,

jeff c

P.S. I just told my parents about the aquarium and aquaponics system I want to try to set up, and they love the idea! Maybe they will be my next aquaponics partners !

Sorry I don't have a camera other than a web cam attached to a desktop computer, so I'd have to move my computer to take pictures of anything...when I get my aquarium and etc up and running, I will definitely move the computer and take pictures...at that time! I will be too excited.

A friend of mine recently came over and saw how much my squash plants are super huge, and wants to buy an AeroGarden now...I'm wondering if I should sell mine, to get some more money for the Aquaponic system. I am still considering using the AeroGarden to provide additional light to the plants in the aquaponic garden, as well as do some experiments with the Aerogarden itself and the fish water...

any thoughts? The Aerogarden cost me $110.

Another option is that the aerogarden is now offering for only $30 I think, a system that plugs into the growing area, that makes it easy to start seeds for 30 plants at a time. Of the last six slots in this aerogarden, I planted one seed of the squash each (2 total), three or four tomato seeds per slot (all sprouted, seven total in 2 slots), and one red pepper each (2 total) and they both sprouted also. That's 100% sprouting so far.

On second thought, I should make the purchase for the garden starter system, I believe in the long run, it would really help in starting plants for the aquaponic systems that I want to build.

well, I guess I talked myself out of that question.

later all,

jeff c