Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Lmao Mad! Yeah over compensating for a sore back

And yes Scotty...you hit the nail on the head. All hail ZOG!
(also right about sand in the tape measure! I ended up buying a 100' fiberglass tape on a reel...working great so far)

I think we're gonna need a bigger hole saw!


Good looking new type of lettuce:


Full moon last night meant a longer work night. The coyotes were howling, temp was about 60 deg...winter is officially over!

Your raft system plants always look so impressive. What are the golden rules you have learned for growing in rafts?

I have an IBC cut down as a DWC and run two cylindrical airstones in it. Is your key to run many smaller airstones to more evenly spread the air (DO) or does it not really mattter. Would one bigger air stone in the middle be as effective as multiples.... ??

Just want to make my raft as effective as possible!

Thanks Mad

There are a lot of factors to growing successfully in a raft system but for your specific question, I would use multiple smaller stones over 1 large stone. It has to do with DO but also agitation of the root mass.

Dragon fruit growing in a raft:

Garlic Chives

nice vortex action in some large tanks on a new build

13 down, 4 to go

Nice clean looking roots there Ryan...

Thanks Rupert.

Well, I have all of the legs attached to the rafters and had a few other things come up so I can't start raising it this weekend. Im going to buy a 12' fiberglass ladder this week and plan on raising the first few next sunday. I went ahead and plumbed a 1000 gal tank to some mechanical and bio filtration to act as a temporary fish holding system. My tilapia, bass and koi were extremely happy to move into the larger tank! The tilapia (only about 24 1/4lb - 1.5lb) were swimming around in a school yesterday which looked really cool.

Here are a few recent pictures of AP veggies. Temps are warming quickly as we are already seeing low to mid 80's and I expect 90 degree weather will be here soon.



Artichoke








Hungry ya think?



My dad emailed me this picture of a mountain lion print he saw in his yard the other day (He just moved to Oregon). I told him he better be carrying his gun when he goes for his daily walks!

can't see the pics, Ryan. Try uploading to the forum instead of Photobucket.

Wow, that's a crowd.

That tomato plant in the pic looks interesting. Have you spiraled the plant around the stake? I have a problem as my tomato plants hit the roof quickly so I only get 2 or 3 bushels and then its on the roof and I find when I run it horizontally it sends out masses of side shoots. Any tips/ideas for me Ryan?

Bill- Not sure why you cant see the photos...but I upload from my phone to PB, then copy the link to here. I think the last time I tried to upload directly to the site from my phone I had problems...but that was a while ago so I just post through my PB account. Hope it was somehting with your browser and you can see now!

Brian- That Tomato plant was grown straight up through a square trellis netting and I just weave it back and forth through the netting. I would say you have a couple options...Run it horizontally and clip off the side shoots (not the flowers!) while it grows. This is what we do in commercial hydro tomato crops, commenly called the "lean and lower" method. You grow the single vine upwards, clipping off the side shoots as it grows and when it reaches the top of your line, you carefully lower and lean it to the side bringing most of the vine horizontally acroaa the bottom and the top of your plant is then back near the ground and can grow back up your support. The other option is to look at what type of tomato plant you buy and get one that is either determinate (sets all fruit at once...usually more of a bush) or get one that is a tumbling variety where you can start high and let it grow down and across (they grow sideways pretty good but still need to trim some of the suckers).

Got a new little buddy this weekend and I figured I would debute her here...

Meet Lola!

Hi Ryan,

Cute Puppy - Won't be small for long!!! Should keep you company when building that massive system.

Hope to bother you for some into.
Just a side note. How deep to you build your Raft system (DWC ) that work so well. Also, how much flow are you putting through ideally (changing the volume of the raft container per hour perhaps?
Cheers,

No worries, it was my smartphone having issues. Keep up the good work.

Thanks Mad. Her mom was 80lbs and the dad was 95 so shes gonna be a big girl. I have another 9yr old Blue Doberman so now she has a little buddy .

Ive built them in a few different depths. Most of the recent pics are in 10' of water (2" freeboard), my home system has 14" of water. Ive grown lettuces/herbs in 4" of water. The problem with shallow troughs is temperature stability/aeration and of course deeper troughs cost more to build so you have to find a happy medium. Ill be building some 26" troughs here pretty soon. As for flow rate, it's not as critical on the plant side as you think. I make sure I turn the FT volume over at least 1x an hour... thats how I size my water pumps. Ive grown them in troughs with 1 turnover an hour to 1 turnover every 12 hours. Even after 12 hours, there isnt a significant drop in nutirents from the start of the run to the end of the run.

I have a workshop coming up next Wed and currently have 65 different varieties of vegetables growing in the system...all kicking butt

Here is a pic I took today of one of the Tomato plants. I had to try and count how many were on it and I got right around 280!!! Crazyness.

Top half of plant

Bottom half

A cluster of Black Krim

Tomatoes look great Ryan!

Very nice tommies Ryan..

Interesting about no difference in the nutrients, Rakocy said they had the same results from their system, same nutes at the start as at the end of the channel..

Thanks for the info Ryan. Your photos always look inviting! I'll be reworking my rafts soon with a few different tricks. Better flow, better filtration, better air flow.... I want 280+ tomm's too.