Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

1x 250 Litre Storage tub FT, 2x 50L Storage tubs filled with scoria, bell syphons back to FT. Expanded in may to include 10 Holes of NFT. 36 Yabbies, 5 Trout. More expansions on he way but i've got a handle on it.... really...... i think...

120gal 4 tanks 2 20gal,240gal,550 powerhead, home made filter,pumpkins,tomatos,yellow peppers,vinica

My system is very young! Just about a week old...

System concept: Ebb and Flow

Fish tank capacity: 80 gallons (35-40 gallons during pump cycle)

Growbeds capacity: 6 UPVC 5.5" gutters, total capacity of 40 gallons

Pumps: 2 pumps, 1 40W 1000 L/hr for the growbeds and 1 300L/hr for the filter

Flowrate control: Main pump is diverted into 3 outlets controlled by a ball valve for each outlet. One returns straight to fish tank as the total flow reducer to growbeds and the other two outlets pumps into the growbeds.

Drainage mechanism: 2 swivel siphons. One for each set of 3 growbeds.

Filter: Usual aquarium filter









follow my system at http://mahfudzaquaponic.blogspot.com

Welcome to the world of aquaponics....

I wasn't sure exactly what you meant by a "swivel siphon"... until I checked out your blog...

Basically it's an external "loop siphon".....

You might want to contact Affnan... a compatriote... and have a look at his affnan siphon...

http://affnan-aquaponics.blogspot.com/

You'll also find others of your countrymen through his "blog"...

Ah! Thanks for pointing that out, I have left the 'loop' out. I got the idea from Affnan's blog when he was testing out the concept of having a loop siphon that can swivel, hence the swivel siphon. It's great because it is much easier to change the water level by the swivel action and can drain more than one growbed at once...connected to a common manifold, the water level in the bed is also self-leveling via hydrostatic action across all beds connected to it so nothing to worry about not having equal flow into each bed...thanks for checking out my blog!

Hey everyone! Here is one of my hobby systems, grown in my garage.

Hi, welcome to all you new folks with small systems on this thread.
mahfudz, your system looks "space age" for lack of a better word. Very cool.

Urgbangardenfarmer, nice neat system you have as well.

What kinds of plants and fish are you growing?

Thanks for the welcome!

Now that you mention it, I see that my system looks like something that may just rocket to the sky given some boosters. Glad you like the way it looks!

At the moment, I'm cycling my system with some tilapia...the jelawat (The Sultan fish (also called Mad Barb)) is having some problem eating due to my pellet size and most of them jumped out on the first day (very common with that fish), so mostly tilapias left...pH is steadily declining from the spike from 7.5 to 8.1, now decreased to 7.3...that ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test strips are quite expensive over here...so I'm not going to test that as for now...

I'm aware that my system is still cycling so I chuck some herbs like coriander and chive, also some easy to grow greens like pak choy, lettuce and kailan (chinese broccoli). Just to see how they would grow...

Since my grow media is LECA contained in pots (this is to make cleaning easy), I need to add an external biofilter to my system. I don't want the water to get too murky so I've asked for some advice from the aquarium shop...supposedly the biofilter will cost another $50...

First try at aquaponics.

4 10 gallon totes with gravel, 12 1 gallon buckets with perlite.

and a 36 gallon fish tank.

its recently cycled so i only have a few perlite buckets with vegetation so far, radishes are exploding so i guess the system is working.

Still lots to learn and experiment with.

Newbie Here and to Auqaponics but long time Hydroponic Grower.. I have become hooked on Auqaponics for about a month now and here is my first system:

Holds about 55-60 Gallons, 16 Fish and hoping to feed a few Lettuce, Spinach and Tomato plants.. Here is a link to my thread: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9325

And some Pics..

nice setups everyone! you're definitely getting my gears turning

System Link...
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9486

Grombo's New 200lt System.

200 lt Fish Tank
200 lt Grow Bed (auto syphon)
200 lt Sump Tank (fills just over half way when growbed dumps water)

Fish, Silver Perch.

Water pumped to constant level FT then gravity fed into GB, then auto syphoned into ST. That thing in the yellow box stops the small fish and floating fish food i.e. pellets and duck weed going down to the grow bed, I found a fish dead in the pipes yesterday so i quickly made the device.

Question: My FT is in direct sunlight, is that going to heat up too much? should I cover it?

Grombo, I noticed you didn't use an SLO for the overflow and I can see some sediments (hydroton dust) already settling in the fish tank. SLO will lift those sediment and can solve your dead fish in the pipe and also sets a good platform for duckweed. You may wanna put the duckweed in the sump tanks because the fishes are just going finish them clean...