Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

actually me too
technology nowadays makes kids move farther away from the nature

I want one for my office..... with a yabbie in it.

A sucker fish wont keep your gravel in the bottom clean. You would be better off with no gravel and maybe a few plants.

As long as you can easily get into the tank to clean it and it gets enough light it would be a nice little feature. Just expect to have to maintain it like a normal tank. I have to with mine, I dont see why this would be any different.

Yeah bit of excessive hype, marketing side is in overdrive and stretching the truth a bit in a few areas, but then that seems to be the standard now a days..

Basically a gimmick and I don't really like gimmick products of any sort, they waste resources and up in landfill within 12 months..

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I am in complete agreement there. My two daughters are always trying to watch TV. They've walked in to the wall "on the way to the bathroom" because they were craning their necks around to see it. I laugh at them, scold them, and move on. They get maybe an hour a week of it, and at the moment, I think that's mostly football. It's a constant push to get them to play outside. Never thought I'd have to fight kids to go play.

As I've starting raising three chickens the last two months, I've been trying to teach them everything I'm learning, too. What they eat, why the act the way they do, proper terminology of each life stage, etc. They are only two months old, so we have a few months before they start laying, but we have that basic idea down. I'm also making sure they understand that when the egg cycle stops, the girls are being sent to freezer camp and subsequently the dinner table. It's important to know where our food comes from and understand the fact that you can not "go the store to buy some, where they don't hurt any animals and just make the chicken." That was a real statement by one of my co-workers. I was dumbfounded.

I also started a mealworm colony to feed to the chickens. That's also become an educational tool, teaching them about their life cycle. They are kind of rough on the terminology so far but between keeping chick, pullet, hen, rooster, larvae, pupae, mealworm, and darkling beetle, they're doing well. I mean, they are only 6 and 8 years old, who led a very sheltered life until two years ago when I entered their lives.

I'm not sure how I feel from the point of view of this being a good or a bad thing for aquaponics. I guess it depends on if it works.

But..

there is such a thing as an "under gravel filter". I ran an aquarium with guppies and plants for years (until my fishtank opened up on the front bottom join and put all the water onto my carpet) without water changes. They grew, had babies, and seemed happy enough.

The under gravel filter is just a sheet of plastic on legs that the gravel sits on. It's full of holes, and as the airlift pulls water up from underneath it, it draws water through the gravel. I didn't know how it worked at the time, but it definitely did. Basically a constant flood grow bed.

So where does all the fish shit... and uneaten feed go Bullwinkle....

Into the (under) gravel filter... or does it get pumped/lifted back up into suspension in the tank water...

Let's be serious.... it's a "trinket".... a novelty.. a toy.... basically useless... and put together by people that have only the vaguest of idea about aquaponics.... if any... and deliberately misleading in it's advertising...

Those plants didn't, can't and wont.. grow.. on top of a glass cage.. with a single, or even a few imprisoned battery goldfish... in the glass cage below...

I think it's helpful to separate these things into the schematics and the packaging. This is more of a packaging exercise, like a lot of "sustainable design" ideas shown on the internet over the last couple of years. Think of all the vertical farming renderings you've seen over the last year on the web.

How much can you grow with one goldfish, surprisingly a lot: download/file.php?id=13474

Does this thing have enough or effective enough filtration or circulation? No.

BTW there is one picture where you can see a little porthole door that lets you feed the fish, I guess anything more would require the plants be taken out. I'm sure their design will evolve more before they're finished.

What's with all the hate? It looks pretty neat, a single betta fish is not going to put a ton of nitrate into the water, but it's good that it doesn't considering the size of the tank. It'll need regular maintenance like any other fish tank, so that's a no brainer. It's not going to grow heads of lettuce, but a few small herb plants would be pretty cool. It would also get the aquaponics ideas into more homes since this should be a very affordable system that anyone could get. If they get bitten by the bug, they may upgrade as time goes on into a real BYAP system.

Utilizing an air pump to pull water up into the aquaponics section can be efficient, I've got a few 'breeder/separation' boxes that hang on some of my tanks that run on this same principle.

Undergravel filters are old school tech, but they do work, the detritus eventually breaks down into mulm and should be siphoned out periodically, but it's of no detriment to the fish.


Another good specimen for a system like this would be dwarf shrimp, like red
cherry shrimp. But the betta is a well thought out choice because they are undemanding, can tolerate a pretty wide variety of tropical temps, and are labyrinth organ fish, which basically means that they've evolved a means to thrive in low o2 situations by breathing air periodically.

Just my thoughts.

*just wanted to add, after reading it, there is a good bit of sales hype, not uncommon to the aquarium world and products though, like the 'no maintenance' bit. I also think it's going to be way overpriced for what it is, this size setup can be made from acrylic and be in a <$25 kit out the door, especially if it doesn't include any sort of lighting. There are other similar sized tanks with filtration, lights, etc that run around that price range, and this is only a slight modification to those with less technology.

I reckon it could work.

Undergravel filters are amazing. I had one on the bottom of an IBC supporting ~2000 bristlenose catfish
It was running for 2.5 years without ever getting a clean and onlly water changes once every 6 months.

Where does the fish poo go? It breaks down in the substrate just like it does in any filter media.
It turns into the sludge we get on the bottom of tanks and growbeds.
This sludge is actually an excellent filter media as it has a massive surface area.
In the waste water treatment plants they call it activated sludge and use it as part of the filter media.

Ever wondered (if you keep aquarium fish) why sometimes you get a small ammonia spike after doing a filter clean even when using old aquarium water to wash it out?
Its because you have removed all the sludge that bacteria were clinging to.

The other thing is that Betta's can handle extremely poor water conditions and love small tanks.

I have some spare glass, I might make one and test the theory myself...

[quote="werdna"]The other thing is that Betta's can handle extremely poor water conditions and love small tanks. quote]

agree and dont agree

betta Do handle poor water quality, but about their love for small tanks is false, just because they can survive in a bowl of water doesnt mean they love it. ive breed betta in my younger years and i know for sure they'd love big tanks more that small ones. just because theyre extremely territorial, thats why they sometimes stays in one corner,IF theres another betta in the same tank (note the if), if he's alone he loves it. especially with couple of females in the same tank *harem mode ON*

just my piece of brain on the subject

Into the gravel like an aquaponics system.

Basically it's a constant flood growbed, but filled with aquatic plants.



water gets drawn into the gravel from the fish tank

there's a gap between the gravel and the floor

water is moved back up from the gap (the gap makes sure there are no dead zones) into the fishtank



I don't know if the toy system actually has an under gravel filter or anything, I'm just stating the existence of undergravel filters. If I had to guess, I'd say they are just drawing water from the centre, and leaving the edges to fend for their anaerobic selves.

My bean sprout spouter turned to the dark (anaerobic) side after only a few days of neglect. I'm guessing the same thing would happen to the toy aquaponics system after a few weeks if you stocked it with enough fishmeat to run the pictured herbs.

Tell that to the tens of thousands of desktop sized aquariums out there that incorporate the same method.

Anaerobic spots in the substrate are usually brought on by a substrate that is too deep and and obviously not getting any oxygenated water to it.

UGF's are old technology and 95% of new aquarium systems utilize a hang on back or canister filtration that does not disturb the substrate whatsoever.

A tank that size, appropriately stocked, could easily create enough waste to maintain some small plants. This is evidenced by the myriad of small desktop type tanks that are decked out with aquatic plants. Same concept, different plant type.