Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I had no joy with growing any root crops in the grow beds of my system. The grow-bed seemed to completely clog up with roots and fish poo to the point where I just had a sodden mess.
I am now trialling using large pots(10 litre water containers with tops removed and holes drilled) of coco-peat sitting on a bed of gravel.
So far it is working ok and the bed is draining well. The pots also drain well and I have radishes just breaking through.
I use the CHIFT PIST method.
I want to get most of my garden into a managable area and wonder if anyone has tried growing Yacon or Jicuma in an aquaculture system? And if so, how well it grew?

What size were your grow beds and how deep??



Satellite pots will work.. but obviously lose water from the system... also the coir will retain moisture.. so don't over water...

The coir is also acidic.. so choose your plants accordingly..



I know there's been mention of Yacon before... try searching the forum...

My grow bed is about 2m x 1.5m and 300mm deep,
I have gravel about 100mm deep to give good drainage and the pots also have a small amount of gravel in the bottom for drainage.
The pots fill to about 1/2 full only and capillary action takes water up the other half.
I am not sure how well they drain as it hasn't stopped raining long enough since i set it up but the top seem to be just moist to the touch.
At present I only have gold fish in my main tank and local native fish (Unknown breed. LOL) in a bath tub. All are breeding so rapidly I need to expand the system soon.
I did a search for Yacon but it came up blank

Trying to add photos. Hope it works

Another try to get the photos to load
Sorry. Not good at this stuff.

I've grown a lot of yacon in the ground, never really bothered in the AP system...

Our soil is terrible. At present it is water logged clay and impossible to do anything with. As soon as it starts to go into the dry season it turns into concrete.
And full of rocks . My husband refuses to dig it snd I can't.
We grow heaps of pumpkin and I have sweet potatoes in an area of mulch from the local dump. Thought I could try yacon but every one says it rots.. Also Jicama.

Rosie b.......

Are you roseie baton off jjj?

Nahh. Just Rosie B of Nambour,

Rosie, I'm having trouble interpreting your system...

You say you're running "chift pist"... but the photos suggest that the fish tank is lower then the growbeds.. that is if the fish tank is the one with the lid propped open....

It appears that you have a siphon in the large grow bed... that you flood to the siphon height.... and then siphon drain...

Is this correct... and how often does the siphon flood & drain each hour??

You say that you only have 100mm of gravel in the grow bed... and the pots flood & drain via capillary action and the siphon...

Does the siphon drain the water below the 100mm of gravel??

I've grown radish, turnip, onion, leeks, sweet potato, beets, carrots, and jicama in regular gravel beds. I notice that radish, turnip and beets almost grow on top of the gravel much of the time but they seem to do ok anyway. The jicama you have to keep an eye on since when it gets cold here there isn't much time to get it out before it will start rotting and basketball size rotting jicama are not pleasant. Jicama needs a really long hot season though before a freeze if you are going to get much from it. I've done better with it where I can mount compost up over it in dirt, makes it easier to dig out.

I can say my gravel is a quartz type river pebbles that are relatively easy to dig around in, kinda smooth so the roots are able to push them around a bit as they grow and I've only noticed rotting of root crops where I let the water flood over the top of the gravel. Roots have done fine for me where the top inch of gravel is above flood height. Many of my plants I start in peat or coir pellets and then transplant into the system so the pellet touches the top of the flood water and acts as a wick for the seedling. However, many things like turnips will sprout just fine by sprinkling seeds around in the gravel.

Hi Rupert. Hope this makes sense to you.

The tank with the lid propped up is the sump tank. (It has a few small unidentified fish in there that made it thru via the syphon when the bed was all clogged up. Maybe goldies. )
The grow bed is above the sump tank, and Has the auto syphon in it to dump the water to the sump.
Behind the grow bed are two fish tanks at about equal height and behind them a bath tub slightly higher.

The water pumps from the sump into the right end of the bath tub, In there I have the local native fish I have yet to identify.
..Then flows out from the left end of the bath to the first fish tank, Set to flow in at the top and draw from the bottom. The inlet sets up a swirling effect in the tank.
..then to the second fish tank, also set to draw from the bottom as above.
..and then to the grow bed. and thru the syphon back to the sump.
.. The water in the grow bed empties almost completely. Just a few mm left in it
.. The grow bed fills and empties about every 15 minutes.

I hope to add another grow bed soon, when I work out how to get them both to fill and syphon independantly. That will probably mean they will fill and empty about every 25 minutes if I up the pump volume a bit.

I tested my water in the system today.
The coir does seem to have made things a bit acidic. Otherwise it looks pretty good still.
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrate 5
PH 6.2, maybe slightly lower

I only have accesss to rain water so the system is a bit acidic most of the time.
The fish still seem to be very happy.
I raised the pots with the coir so they have only about the bottom 25->30mm in the water and hope capilliary action will move the water up to the seedlings.

Photo Update

Nice looking setup Rosie.

Those fish from the creek are Gambusia and declared noxious around Australia. Not sure about QLD, but other states have hefty fines for having them !