Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have been having the most wonderful lettuce all winter from my little ebb 'n Flow Hydroponics setup. It is so tasty, but there's not enough! (Plus the setup has a tray of thyme, a tray of oregano and a tray of basil.

So I just purchased a 10-gal. fish tank. It's been running and I now have three gold fish in it. Looks good so far.

I'm ready to plant some lettuce in it. I was told to get the plastic meat tray containers, poke a hole in it, put a piece of sponge through the hole until it connects with the water and then plant a couple lettuce seeds. Is that correct? Will this work? I'm assuming I need have a number of holes poked through the same foam tray????? And I'm assuming there will be more than one tray on top of the water???????

Another question: What else will work with this type system? Cucumbers? Would they need a lot more light than lettuce?

Hi Sonshe welcome to Backyard Aquaponics.

It's not compulsory to post pictures of your system, but everyone does like to see them.

Seems like you already have been involved with AP before...

what/who got you started?

I'm assuming that you are thinking of floating the tray containers on the fish tank, is that correct??

Have seen a similar thing done with "scotch/brylo" pads and there are quite a few members who have used the polysterene lids from fruit and vege boxes to float on their systems.

Search through all the posts with the "search" feature and I'm sure you'll find lots of ideas to inspire you

Good morning Sonshe!

I made a little floating raft for our 10 gallon aquarium in the living room with two goldfish and an algae eater in it, by tying Scotch Brite pads to some blue styrofoam floats using nylon "zip" ties. A scrubby pouf thing that you use for the bathtub or shower would probably work too.

I grew grass, becasue I had grass seed in a bag in the garage and I wanted a vertical design element for aesthetics!

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... 79&start=0

For a floating raft in an aquarium I would think you would need something that doesn't weigh too much (the raft would start to sink) or get too big.

Ok, I'm confused! Not a hard thing to do! Dave, I looked at your pics, but where do you plant the seeds? In the Scotch pads? How do the seeds get moisture to sprout? Are the Scotch pads adjacent to the stryofoam and floating also on the water? What happens to the roots of the plants once they sprout? Are they continuously in the water? If so, would they not eventually rot?

Seeing pics does not help me a whole lot! I need facts.
Thanks.

Hi again S:
The pads are continuous across the bottom of the raft, the styrofoam makes a border on top of the pads, and around the edges. The pads are set end to end; the styrofoam is a piece big enough to cover the whole top with big rectangular holes cut into it. I cut up some pads to fill in the space a bit, then just dropped grass seed into it. The ones that got enough moisture sprouted. The roots find their way through the holes in the pad. I guess they might rot eventually, but the bubbler is underneath the raft so they are continiuously getting oxygen. I would expect they won't rot unless they died.

sonshe where are you located? What state?

I'm in Western PA, zone 5. why?

They should call this site Pennsylvania Aquaponics!

C'mon Sonshe, put a city name in your profile. You can't be that far from Dave D. And I'm not that far from Dave. OK, two hours, I think.

In reality, I think us folks in the US are jealous of the Aussies ability to actually meet each other face-to-face. It's nice to know who's close by on the off chance you can share a fish shipment, for example.

No Kidding.....

Anyone from California???? :protest:

Hey MF ... all the Pennsylvanian folk were saying over the last couple of weeks that you'd moved ...

Where'd you move to Pennsylvania???? LOL

oh-hoho -you're in for a fight there dave, how about having time zones and the site changes names every 3-4 hours to fit in with the people on (Les you're ever the diplomat....pats himself on the back )

Or more simply, Dave (or the PA crowd) could buy the domain PennsylvaniaAquaponics.com and just redirect it here. Maybe then it would bump us up the google searches!

What a good idea.....

http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusi ... usat_x.htm
^^^ That's a decent article on "how to get GOOG to notice you." ^^^

I do have a couple of cool projects in my corner for the (non-existent) IL crowd:
First off, we have the lovely Valmeyer school in Southern Illinois with a very excellent aquaponic program that's highlighted in a few publications, and which Janet found as a Talapia supplier(for me anyway!)
Secondly, we have the newly established http://www.aquaranch.com/argreenhouse.htm in Flanagan, IL just outside my alma mater.
So there!