Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Guys! I thought I'd start a member systems thread. My wife has started to get tired of hearing things like "Babe! BABE! COME LOOK! QUICK! One of the tomato plants has a new leaf!!!"

So I'll tell you guys instead!

The water levels are finally down to the point where I can start adding fish. Ammonia has dropped to 0.25 ppm, Nitrites are 0, Nitrates are 5 ppm and PH is running around 7.8.

Vital stats - 110 gallon fish tank and 60 gallon grow bed. The grow bed is about 3 feet by 3 feet. It's roughly 12 inches deep, but I'm only using about 11 inches for media... got tired of buying rocks. The tank is a stock tank I picked up on craigslist. It had been an underground reservoir for a fountain in its previous life, then a dog bath, now a fish tank! The GB is built from scrap lumber I picked up at home depot for $0.51 per. I lined it with an EPDM Pondgard liner that was sold as new, but still had feathers and vegetation stuck to it... and it was still wet when I got in via UPS, so... But it works

The pump is rated at 210 GPH, but with the 4 feet of lift it needs to get to the GB, I'm only ending up with about 75 GPH. The pipe going up to the GB from the pump is 1/2 inch PVC. The pump came with a screen but no filter, so I picked up some agave scouring pads and stuffed a chunk in there... works like a charm! I have an olive tree near by that likes tossing leaves in that are just the right size to get into and gum up the pump.

The gravel guard for the bell siphon is 4" PVC with way too many holes drilled in it, but it works. The siphon has a 12" stand pipe made from 1" PVC and the bell is 2" PVC about 14" tall. I haven't timed the cycle on it, but its fairly quick. When its flushing, it runs at about 450 GPH.

I tried adding a homemade venturi to the output of the siphon, but it doesn't seem to make any difference, so I moved the FT (dang thing does NOT like to budge when full) so that the siphon output drops onto an angled bit and splashes all over the place, so that should help a little with aeration. I plan to add an actual air pump soon.

Nice looking setup.

One suggestion if I may? Add some cross bracing to the legs of the GB to prevent any lateral movement in any direction. You've probably got over 500kg sitting atop those four posts and it wouldn't take much of a nudge to see the whole thing fall, potentially injuring someone or worse. IMHO you can never have too much bracing!

I planted some pink brandywine tomatoes and California Wonder peppers 2 and a half weeks ago. The peppers never sprouted, but I got about 2 dozen tomatoes to come up. Only about half of them survived the transplanting process (they were completely wilted within 2 hours! They were so far gone, I couldn't even see them the next day). A dozen tomato plants for a family of 5 (only 4 of which will eat anything that isn't ramen) seems like a bit of an overkill, but I've heard that brandywine toms are hard to grow, so I'm planning for some losses. If they all fruit, then we'll have to make some friends...

Saturday, I broadcast some marketmore cucumber seeds in the back 40 on the right, and some blue lake bush beans on the left. The bush beans just turned to mush, but the cucumbers exploded. One night there was nothing, the next morning everything was green! I wish I had started with these. They seem to really suck up the nitrates.

Monday, I threw some of the bush beans into a tupperware container with some damp potting soil. You can see it on the stool in the back of the picture with the fish tank in the previous post. Not seeing any movement with those, but I'm hopeful. I'm adding more water periodically so I don't drown them. The soil is still pretty dry.

We had neglected to eat a red onion for a time and it started to sprout green things... it was just sitting in our fruit basket on the counter and had grown 3 inches of vegetation! I decided that if it really wanted to live that badly, it deserved to, so I tossed it the grow bed. It wasn't doing anything for a while, so I dug it up and found it had rooted like mad! Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting it back in and ended up breaking off a lot of the roots.... Sorry, onion! I have no doubt it will recover and keep the rest of the plants company for many months to come.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of toes in these pics. The previous tenants appear to have gone on drinking binges nightly and used the bottles for target practice. I've picked up buckets of broken glass and still am finding shards big enough to lop off a leg. So, no bare feet. Just have to use your imagination.

Thanks for the suggestion, Bunson. I thought about doing the same thing, but after filling the thing up, I'm not sure anything's gonna budge it. I've leaned on it quite heavily and haven't seen any movement. At this point, my concerns are bouncing between the legs shifting and toppling without support and adding support, but weakening the legs in the process... I think I'm eventually going to add braces, just trying to figure out the best way of doing it.

Per Bunson's suggestion and my wife's insistence, I added braces to each of the legs. I've also discovered that we have hornworms SOMEWHERE in the neighborhood. I've pulled about 100 eggs from the plants in the last 24 hours and found one dead adult moth and killed another. I put some bird netting over the plants for the night and will build a permanent solution when funds permit.

And I got my fish today!! I picked up 15 blue tilapia fingerlings ranging from 1/2" to 3" long. They came with duckweed and possibly some pond snails. They were kinda skittish at first but they're coming toward the surface now.

I had a bit of a scare before I went to go get them from http://www.gardenpool.com I had checked my water a week ago and ammonia was at 0.25, nitrites were 0 and nitrates were at 5 ppm. I checked them today, 2 hours before I was supposed to get my fish, and the nitrites and nitrates were off the scale! Ammonia was still at 0.25, though. I had some leaves in the water, but that's nothing new. I also had put an agave scrubby pad in my pump screen to keep the leaves out. I think that had started to decay and was adding ammonia which was kicking the nutrients up really high. I did a 50% water change and was still at just under 5 ppm for nitrites and 40 ppm nitrates. After a few hours, the levels came down to acceptable levels. I salted to about 2 ppt and put the fish in... they don't seem to be uncomfortable... I'm a bit nervous that my bio filter isn't up to par, now, though. I guess we'll see in the morning.

I've had good growth since last Thursday.

I added some Blue Lake Bush Beans last Saturday. I just placed them anywhere I could push the gravel aside. They've really taken off. I had to start them in soil, though, and ended up throwing about half a dozen in the compost heap because I just didn't have room for them. My wife just suggested adding another grow bed... I've hooked her!

We had grilled veggies a few weeks ago (before the bush beans had sprouted) and I picked all the seeds out of the 5 red bell peppers we bought and spread about half of them over the media. I had read that they probably wouldn't sprout, but I figured they wouldn't hurt much.

I have like 5 sprouted now! They're sprouting under the bush beans that I had planted in the same area. Take THAT internet naysayers! ... To be fair, I sowed about 40-50 seeds... Only 5 showing at this point. Still, free peppers are free peppers! I'm calling this cultivar CostCo Wonder peppers... Because I got them at CostCo and I am wondering what they really are...

Fish are happy, but not eating the food I bought... I thought they were. I threw the pellets in and they look like they eat them, but then spit them out as soon as they think I'm not looking.. There were pellets galore on the bottom this morning. They've cleaned the tank of any algae, though. There is still a wee bit of duckweed on the surface of the water, so I know they aren't starving. Not sure what to do.

what kind of ph levels are you running with that system i bet there high

Oh no! It looks like some of my posts have been deleted... I guess that means I get to talk about my system again!

I had set up a greenhouse (kinda) because we got a cold snap. It dropped down to a high of 60-something from 105 over the course of 36 hours. Then, just as fast as the temp dropped, it popped back up, so I took down the plastic.

The hornworm eggs I missed have hatched and they've started munching my tomato leaves. I dusted them with dipel, but didn't like how it clumped up, so I sprayed a bit of it off, but it dried up all and left gray blotches all over the leaves anyway. They don't seem to be suffering, and the hornworms I've found do not look happy.

The bough some duckweed and threw it in the tank with the tilapia. They aren't gobbling it up like I'd expect (or its growing faster than I expected), but they seem much more comfortable. They are hovering closer to the top rather than hanging around toward the bottom. I did an inspection last night and found one sitting on the bottom of the tank not moving.. most of them were 'sleeping', but flapping their pectoral fins to keep them in place. I reached in and he didn't move until I tapped him and then he darted off. My wife stuck her finger tip in and they all came to figure out what it was. And I am trying to grow duckweed in a bucket separate from the main system. I took some out of the bucket and put my hand in the water to get the duckweed off. The fish were almost eating out of my hand. Happy fish indeed.

The tomatoes are really going like crazy. I took the picture on Saturday and they've grown another few inches since then. Their stems are bigger around than a pencil and I'm starting to see places for flowers.

The cucumbers have started throwing up tendrils, so I'm going to drop strings down from the greenhouse and see if they will start climbing up and pulling themselves away.

My peppers are also sprouting, but growing at a disappointing pace.

Art, I had answered you before the posts got deleted, but just in case you didn't see it, the pH out of the tap is about 7.4 and the system runs between 7.6 and 8.4. The tilapia prefer basic water and the plants are doing pretty well, so I'm not too concerned, but it seems higher than ideal to me.

Sorry for the missed week in updates... I was hoping to keep a log of each of the plant groups as they progressed, but it's all one big jungle now.

My nitrates have dropped to 0. I'm seeing some yellowing of the leaves on the cucumbers, and I had been debating about thinning them. Today, I did. I pulled all of the plants without blooms. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would and I think the plants will be better off. Did you know that cucumber root smells like the cucumber fruit?? I was blown away!

I'm getting lots of buds and a few blooms on the tomatoes. I think I'm going to have to start pruning them pretty soon. I forget what the rule is there, but suckers are starting to grow, so I'll look that up.

The bush beans are moving really slowly and I have no hope at all for the peppers. They're growing so slowly I wonder if they'll ever get to a point where they'll fruit. It's a competitive bed. Maybe they'll do better in my new system (when I get around to building it).

Had a HSM moment yesterday. My daughter unplugged the water pump and air pump in the morning and didn't plug them back in (she thought the cord was something else). I came home and the area around the fish tank smelled like rotting fish. The water was cloudy, but all swimmers were accounted for. I lost a few bush beans, but that could just be coincidence. They have never really took hold.

Today, I bought a 550 VA UPS and it is currently charging.

I was cleaning out my pool this morning and I found a gigantic tomato horn worm at the bottom. It was on the other side of the yard as my grow bed, and this monster would have taken out a couple of plants overnight. I have to imagine someone in the neighborhood is also growing tomatoes and isn't keeping up on their pest control.

I haven't had any appreciable growth on the plants since last week that I can see, but the cucumbers and tomatoes are flowering like mad. I don't know how long I can expect the plants to flower before they fruit, but I'm getting impatient. My wife said I can't expand until I've had success with this system... her definition of success is a bit different than mine! She says since we haven't actually had any produce, it hasn't proven to be successful.

Fruit, dammit, fruit! I have IBC dreams to fulfill!

Nice plant pictures slowRider, I like seeing the green leaves this time of year (dark and gray and brown here now)

BT might help keep worms off the tomatoes.

Yeah, since I've dusted with BT, I haven't had any worms on my plants... this one must have come from somewhere else... maybe a bird pulled it off a neighbor's plant and dropped it?

Part of the greenery has to do with our temperatures.. things will go brown in the summer, I'm sure. It's still in the high 80s here.