Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone!

I thought i might show some of the stuff i have been working on.

Greenhouse is 12'x32'

These little guys have been in the system for a month now. We have alreayd harvested 6 tasty little srawbarries. In the three wood beds we just seeded a few days ago. So far there are a few popers.

Thought i would try a citrus tree. So far its doing well tell the heat of the day hits and the leaves will droop. With the sides down and the door closed the temp can jump to 140.
In the pond we have a few Tilapia and gold fish. I am working on breeding the Tilapia to increase the numbers.

Thats all for now hope you enjoy!

Looking good there. Boy its dry where you live looks like AP is the way to go to get some fresh vegies

Its very dry here but once you work the ground just about everything can be grown here. My wife and i have a nice garden i just get bored with it. With AP theres always something to build, change, or addon to it.

Nicely done Nathan....

Cool... How do you go with the heat there, with the sides lifted like that do you get enough air flow to keep it cool in there?

With the sides up and the door open it will cool to the outside teampature but I am looking into building some type of small swamp cooler. i was thinking something inline so theres no need from aonther pump aswell as aerate the water. I may have to bust out some shade colth if needed but i would rather not. The plants take the heat well as long as the system if functioning properly aside from the citrus tree. Im just a little worried the dark pvc will heat up and melt the plastic.

Nice setup Nathan. It's hard to control temp swings in a low tunnel like you've got. An in-line Swamp cooler would help but you would need to compensate for the added evaporation and any solids in the system would wind up on the cooling pads. You might have to add a line for automatically topping up your tank if you don't already have one.

Better to add shade cloth when in doubt. Looked up the melting point of polyethylene which is what I think you are using and it is 248 to 266 degrees F or 120 to 130 degrees C for everyone else out there. You could easily get to 200 plus with black piping and not much air flow over it.

That's good to know. I think for now I'm going to wait for my lovely 110 days to see how everything stands up and go from there.

Cool. Where'd you get your tilapia from?

A student from the U of A sold them to me. He was in the aquaponics department before they closed it