Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So about a month ago I began thinking about the possibility of using Aquaponics as a method of substituting income for farmers in the region where I work for an NGO. So I have decided to make a system to evaluate the possibility of using it as a development project. Fortunately I have a 3 month leave from work and can devote myself to testing this out. I am already thoroughly enjoying it so the potential of doing this for work is great!

Here is the outline of the system:

Containers:
We found bathtubs for dirt cheap so I decided to go with that. I got three and right now they are set up as fish tank, grow bed, and sump tank, (CHIFT PIST). I hope to expand it a bit more later if I get a chance, I would like to experiment with growing lettuce and basil in DWC.


Pump:
The only pump I was able to find empties the bathtub in under 2 minutes so I think it is a bit of an overkill. It has a safety float switch that turns the water off when it gets to low and back on when it fills in so right now it is running without a timer.

Drain:
When i was first setting up the system I wondered if I could use a toilet mechanism connected to a float to use instead of a bell siphon. The theory was that if the flap was connected to a float when the water filled up to a certain point the float would pull open the drain and cause the water to flush out quickly. Unfortunately we were not able to get it to work so I have settled with a simple stand pipe drain that lets the water out slower than it comes in.


Water:
The water is very hard here but before I understood what that did to the PH level I was trying to lower the PH with vinegar, put a lot in with no affect .

Gravel:
Knowing that we had hard water I had the challenge of finding a reasonable grow medium that wasn’t base. I used vinegar to test the gravel and it all bubbled except for a crushed red rock that they use to spread on village roads here, the problem is that it comes in any size from fine dust to 5 cm chunks. I spent a lot of time cleaning it out and trying to get decent size pieces I ended up with big stones in the bottom of my grow bed with finer stuff at the top. When I first started running the pump all the water was a dark red color, now it has settled down and is much cleaner but it still leaves a red coat of silt on everything. I hope that wont be a problem later.

Welcome tworivers, sounds like a great project!

Starting the system:
I started my system on May 26th when I caught my first fish. It is happy with the PH some where over 8.4 which is as high as my test strip go. I have put a large sock full of pine needles, a large piece of pine bark (where the fish like to hide) and a piece of pine wood to try and lower the PH but it has stayed high. I now only use water that has been through a water softener for toping up, so hope that it will slowly go down. I have been feeding the fish as much as he will eat in hopes of getting things going quicker and since it is just one little fish in lots of water I don’t think I am in to much danger of losing him.

Plants: About 6 days after I started with the fish. (May 31st)
I figure it is way to early to have plants in the system since I can’t find an organic fertilizer but they were purchased before I arrived and were way oversized for their little containers that I figure there is nothing to lose if I plant them.


More fish: One week of cycling (June 2nd)
The goal is to have Carp but until I am fairly sure the system isn’t going to kill my fish I am using free fish I can catch in the river. I bought a fish trap, looks like an oversized wire donut, and tried several times with no luck except for the one fish I started out with. The fish are supposed to swim down the middle and then they can’t get out but there were tons of tiny fish going in and out through the wire of the trap eating all the bait! Finally I decided to leave it in the river overnight and see what would be there in the morning, hoping no one would walk off with the trap. When I came back in the morning I found I had caught 8 fish!


When I first added them to the bathtub they seemed quite content to slowly swim around the tank. The first fish would dart around the tank banging into the side of the tub. Later they all got up to speed and now they dart around the bottom of the tank whenever I open the lid.


Feeding and Ammonia levels:
Now that there are 9 fish I have decided not to feed them so the ammonia doesn't get out of hand. Unfortunately there are no home test kits in this part of the world for Ammonia, I have tested daily for PH, Nitrite and Nitrate but they are the little test strips that I don’t think are very accurate. I have friends bringing a proper liquid test kit from the states next week.

PH I think is slowly going down from off the chart. the color test pad isn’t as bright pink as it was at first so I am guessing it is around 8. (the color pink on the results chart for 8 and 8.4 are basically the same)

Nitrite and Nitrate: Any idea when I can expect to see something showing on these?

This is my first system so any advice or input is welcome, I am a total newbie at this! Please let me know if you notice I am doing anything the wrong way or have ideas on improving the system.

A couple of questions.

Anyone have any ideas what kind of fish this is? The locals call it "flower fish".


The weather is getting up to about 30C right now but I am expecting it to get over 50C (122F). So I am going to be looking for ways to protect the system from the heat. I will be putting up shade cloth in the next few weeks.

The GB rock that I have is dark red so to keep the sun from baking it I covered it with a white nylon sack, anyone see a problem with that? I even thought of insulating the top of the grow bed with packing peanuts (Styrofoam chips) any thoughts on that? so the top 2 cm of the GB that doesn't get wet is covered in Styrofoam. The water temperature is currently at 20c in the morning and 25c at 5 in the afternoon. Are these temperature fluctuations ok?

I think you are doing great!
What vegetables do the locals eat? Onions, peppers and chilli's do great. Tomatoes do really well. Brassica will have bug problems. Celery will do so well it will take over, for not much nutrition.

I would be putting a lot more plants on there as you may as well get started.

Big confession. I have been doing this for about 5 years now and I have never owned a test kit. I just observe the fish, the colour of the water (weak tea is good) and I use my sense of smell a lot. When you uncover your fish tank in the morning get your nose right down there and have a good sniff. You can smell ammonia if it is in there. Not that I have said that I will have all my fish die tomorrow.

Because you are in a hot climate be sure you have lots of aeration. You don't need a pump you can make a venturi from your return line, or have the return line drop the water from on high.

I really would like to know what veges the locals eat there.

I think shade cloth would be a must for your plants, because in that sun (similar to here, only we only get up to 45). As for the fish, if they are living in the river they are probably acclimatised to extreme heat. They will eat a lot when it gets hot, make a lot of fertiliser and so you will need a lot of plants. Those fish are gonna grow when it gets hot.

Best wishes

Why does it say "Mediteranian" in the title?
(honest question not trying to sound rude)

Welcome to the forum Tworivers, looks like you are definately on the right track and what a great start. Keep those photos coming. I think you may be a first from Iraq

Johnfenn,

Thanks for the info! I am glad to hear that you have never used a test kit as I think if this is going to be reproducible locally they will need to get used to doing it without the test kits.

I am going to look into putting a venturi line in, I am guessing that you mean in the fish tank.




The main staples are tomatoes, cucumbers, egg plant, onions, potatoes, radishes and they also have a variety of greens like parsley, coriander (cilantro), basil, green onions and several other green bunch stuff I am not sure what they are.

There are a lot more veggies that they don't have year around, carrots, cauliflower, baby zucchini, okra, lettuce, green beans, peppers. this isn't exhaustive but what I can think of off the top of my head right now.

My hope is that with Aquaponics they can grow veggies out of the normal season, especially during the hottest months when a lot of things can not be found in the market, that way they would get a higher price for the veggies.

Thanks!

This is the first system I am going to make so I named it my Med system because I am 30 minutes from the Med.

The next question might be what part of Iraq is 30 minutes from the Med, I am currently on a 3 month leave from work and living outside of Iraq with relatives. So this system is an experiment I am doing in my free time that I hope to take back to Iraq and develop it as an opportunity for Iraqis.

you can call it whatever you like tworivers

oh..and welcome aboard

tomatoes, cucumbers, egg plant, onions, radishes, parsley, basil, green onions green bunch stuff I am not sure what they are. These will all do extremely well in your system. You should have a full growbed just for tomatoes as everybody loves them. I have 2 square metres for toms and during season get about 2kg a day from them. In your climate that should happen all year round.

I am assuming you have mild winters. I imagine it can get pretty cold there at night as it does here, but the day times are OK.

Everybody likes potatoes, but they are really not suitable for a traditional growbed as they consume a lot of space and the potatoes get water rot. However grown in a barrel, or old truck tyres and a bucket of fish water every couple of days and they grow beautifully. Everything loves fish water.

coriander (cilantro), wants to bolt straight to seed, but a professional must have some tricks up their sleeve. Parsley grows very well as does basil.

"There are a lot more veggies that they don't have year around, carrots, cauliflower, baby zucchini, okra, lettuce, green beans, peppers. this isn't exhaustive but what I can think of off the top of my head right now."

All these can do very well, especially the lettuce, okra, beens and peppers. The cauli and cabbage I have too many bugs come to my house.

"My hope is that with Aquaponics they can grow veggies out of the normal season, especially during the hottest months when a lot of things can not be found in the market, that way they would get a higher price for the veggies. I think that with judicious use of shade cloth in the real hot months on both the fish tank and the grow beds, then take it off for the cooler months and it should just keep on producing."

For a system like yours the cost and availability of seedling may be prohibitive. So you will need to come up with some way of germinating seeds. So you will need to get some of your clients starting seeds. ready for planting. You will go thro a LOT of seedlings, lettuce for example will go from seedling to harvest in just a few weeks, and you will need seedlings ready to go. It would not be a good use of grow bed space to raise food from seed.

As you can probably tell your endeavour has captured my imagination. Now you have to go back to Iraq and getting locals fired up.

J

Thanks tworivers, that's exactly what I was wondering, seeing as I'm sitting on the mediterranean myself! (I can see it if I look out the window this exact moment.)

Keep in mind that something that might work wherever you are now (conditions, temperature, fish, and so on) may not work in Iraq and vice versa, but it's a great idea to experiment while you have time on your hands.

johnfenn,

Thanks for your input, you are right about the difficulty of finding seedlings, when I arrived here it was already too late to find a lot of seedlings and it is getting harder to find stuff as summer starts.

I have already started trying to grow some seeds, it is a bit of a challenge to try and get all the factors right. I am experimenting with egg cartons since it might be possible to put them right into a DWC raft once they start growing.

This is just Coriander testing with different types of medium.


Here I have covered them with plastic to keep them moist, I wonder if it will be a problem if it gets to hot in the middle of the day? I think I am going to get a tray of lettuce next.

I also am doing some seeds with dirt.
The first batch I did there was too little dirt and I think most of the seedlings died.



I am doing it again and already have a bunch coming out, can't remember where I planted what, I know the lettuce hasn't come out, I think there is some basil and something else already poking out. I like the idea of putting the egg carton in an enclosed container so the egg carton can soak up the moister and keep the soil damp, makes it a lot easier to keep it watered in the hot weather.



Something like this could be added to my AP system so it is automatically watered with each cycle of the system.

Well, yesterday was a sad day for my fish. They all had been looking so healthy and I have been running the system for 3 weeks that I was hoping the system was cycled, so I gave them a big meal in the morning the day before and then a bit more in the evening. Got up the next morning and one fish was dead and several others were swimming upside down.

I emptied half of the system and added new water from the tap, I normally let the water set for 24 hours before adding it to the system just in case there is any chlorine, we live a ways out side of the city and I don’t think it has much chlorine if any. (not sure what they do to process the water in this part of the world). I also added some salt to the system, I am not really sure what the salt will do but have heard that it helps the fish out. The first fish I took out clearly died from ammonia poisoning had a red swollen anus. Some of the others that died later had a bit of red around the gills but some that died throughout the day didn’t have any of these signs.

There was one fish I noticed early on that had a split in his side that was bulging out, not sure what it was, here is a picture sorry it isn’t very clear. Any ideas what this could be?

Part of what made everything worse is that we have had a couple of very hot days not sure what the weather temperature is but the water got up to 30c on the day all the fish died. I wonder if these fish are not used to warmer water, the place I caught the fish is close to the source of the river and is quite cold all year around.

Part of the problem might be not enough oxygen in the water so I put in a better venturi line and hope that the fish will do better. I currently have the system set up so the pump turns on for a couple of minutes cycling about half the fish tank then shuts off for about 10 minutes while the grow bed drains and then the pump starts up again. I was wondering if 2 minutes of aeration is going to be enough in the warm water or if I am going to need something to keep it aerating continuously. Since I am new at this I am planing on only having 10 small carp in there max. (I probably need to do some calculating how much water is in the bathtub to make sure I under stock the fish)

Another thing I am concerned about is there is a slimy mildew like substance on everything in the tank, I figured it was normal but then I noticed it was on the one fish that is left alive, I noticed it because I can see a little on his eyes. Is this normal? or just a sign of too much ammonia. This last fish that is alive is barely hanging on, he doesn’t move much anymore and I don’t expect him to survive the day. I plan on leaving him in the water and finish cycling the system with a dead fish if he doesn’t survive.