Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello there!

New member here and building a smaller indoor system to start with, not yet finished so this thread will be a place to follow my project as it goes on.

At the moment i have some "Mossambicus Tilapia RED" which i guess is some kind of Hybrid of "Oreochromis mossambicus" they are around 8cm at the moment and swimming around my 250L aquarium with some other fish. Not sure if these will be in this indoor system or if they will have to move into some bigger waters in the basement or some other place, they kinda ate all 20 of my Neon tetra last day.

The indoor system is loosely based on the ELIOOO design which can be found http://eliooo.com and below are some early pictures of the "base" that will hold up the small growbeds and have a fishtank of some sort at the bottom.

The system will be placed indoor near my kitchen and the plan is that it will produce some herbs and maybe some lettuce and other smaller vegetables no plans to get some eatable fish out of these, maybe i will use it to have fingerlings or something in the future but not sure what i will put in there yet in the ways of fish.

At the moment i am waiting for the paint on the "base" to dry and tomorrow after work i think i will be able to mount the consoles and things. Also i have to try to start constructing some way of holding my lights over each growbed. Plan is to light each bed with around 4-5 CFL Bulbs have some at home 23w 2700k bulbs and 30w 6500k bulbs that i think will work great, more on this later.

Also trying to decide how the beds will be watered should i go with flood and drain or some kind of constant flow? Any ideas here because i am stuck at the moment.

Regards,
ViPER^-

PS: My fish eating some rice!

Welcome ViPER...

Thanks RupertofOZ!

I have since a couple of days gotten a simple blog over at blogger.com/Blogspot.com where i update about my system and try to collect my information that i have about Aquaponics so feel free to visit my page at http://simpleaquaponicssweden.blogspot.com but i will still update with posts to the forum!

Update today/yesterday i got some stuff for my system not any specially thing just some basic 3" netpots, Diamond Mylar Sheeting (probably for my DIY reflectors later on) and a couple of hundred rockwool plugs that will be used for seeds and cuttings in the system.

Later today i will get back here with some more pictures of how the mounting process of the consoles and grow beds where made, also a temporary fish tank will be installed. And i may start with the light reflectors or at-least come up with some kind of design/drawing for them i hope.

Have a nice day here it is snowing and snowing!

Regards,
ViPER^-

A bit of the work done today!

The base is almost complete now with consoles and stuff mounted to it, just go to buy some white painthed thin bits of wood to smack on here and there to help cover some glitches and ugly screws and nails.

Also after trying with knife, holesaw and a soldering iron to make nice holes into the lids where the pots would sit i gave up and thought why the hell i was doing this, why not just put the expanded clay straight into the grow beds with out any pots? Just take the whole rockwool plug or even cuttings or seed and put them directly in the growing media?

So the lids will be saved for something else or when i figure out a better way to make the holes. Also been thinking that i need to get some hoses and things to hook the stuff up, but need to wait until monday for some new fresh cash to spend.

Today i also think ill put some seeds of different sorts in some rockwool plugs to get them started for when the system may get up and running. Need to fix the fixtures and reflectors for the light and get some other things for the temporary fish tank before i dare to put fish in it.

Will let the pictures talk for them self, never mind the mess in the room kinda gets a bit like that when working with this stuff indoors.

Regards,
ViPER^-

Howdy Viper - good to see another Scandinavian attempting Aquaponics :-).
What are your plans regarding lamps?

All the best,
Kaper

I like the setup. How is it that Sweeds can put together stuff in the simplest of ways and have it be so functional?

ikea?

Or the Swedish Chef...

Mort, mort, mort.

Well some help from Ikea and everything will be solved Swedish Style.

About the lighting i have bought quite a bit of regular E27 Low Energy Bulbs, to be exact i bought 18 23w 2700 kelvin bulbs and 20 30w 6500 kelvin bulbs.
The plan to start with is to build some kind of fixture and reflector that will hold 4 lamps 2x23w + 2x30w to start with. And if that wont do it i also have around 10 55w PL-L ballasts that will fit those CFL tubes that are around 50cm long.

I hope that i wont need the 55w tubes for this system since i plan to use some of them for extra light in my aquarium and the rest for another grow system that is placed directly above my 250L Aquarium but that is another chapter.

Another project i have going is to build some kind of "propagation station" for raising seeds and cuttings for the aquaponic systems but also for planting outdoors in the spring/summer but that is also another chapter that have to wait a bit.

Regards,
ViPER^-

Howdy people!

Back again with some more updates about the progress of my system, been a while since i posted both here or on my blog about my aquaponic adventures.

A fish tank is beeing built and some bolts and Tee nut´s have been added to the bottom of the base to which will allow for some adjustment to get it flat and leveled out. Since i live in an old house not everything is flat or leveled.

The tank i built is the first in my life so it was quite the challenge to figure out how it is done best and to see if it would hold the water or leak. Made it from 6mm glass that i bought cheap at my local glass company, asked them for some used glass to keep the costs down which was no problem at all paid around 20 USD for glass and Silicone i already had some at home since gluing a Back to nature background in my 250 L aquarium.

The tank i built holds around 60L of water and the size is 46x33x45 (Length x Depth x Height) and since i am no pro with silicone and getting the joints correctly i covered my sloppy work with some wood parts to make it blend in nicely.

Other than that there have not been that much of progress, mostly i am waiting for my tubes and hose to arrive so i can start connecting everything together. Got some plans about 2 pumps in the system one that will flood the grow beds on intervals and the other one will be used with some filtering media to run as an internal filter in the tank.

Next thing to do is to start building the light fixtures and reflectors because all seeds i have started up a couple a weeks ago are soon ready to be transplanted to the system.

Bellow are some pictures of a little of everything, also on my new aquarium cleaning crew some Gibbiceps about 15-20cm big that really does a great job.

More images for you people!

THis is the first time I've seen a fish tank being made.. thanks for the show and tell.

Very cool. Whats the trick with making glass aquariums? I often stare at mine and wonder how they do it.

Well i am not sure if there are any tricks or i just havent learnt any yet since it was my first ever built aquarium. But i also find it cool that one can use silicone and get it to work. My big 250 liters aquarium is also only glass and silicone except for a top frame but its made of 12mm glass and the weight of just the empty aquarium is massive so it is quite interesting that the silicone joints can keep it together.

Guess there are quite a bit of guides and different ways to glue aquariums and i have seen some youtube vids where some professional guys glue a smaller aquarium in just 30 secs or something.

About the progress of the system, been finishing up the aquarium with some paint and stuff so hopefully tomorrow it will be dried and ready for some water again. Just hope it still keeps the water on the right side of the glass.

Regards,
ViPER^-

I am pretty sure all of the outward load is on the top and bottom strap. The glass is rigid enough to handle the weight, and the silicone is just there to fill the gap.