Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Everyone...

I have been researching hydroponics, and then aquaponics alot in the last few months and I am keen to start my own system.

We have a bit of land and a bit of money to get started, but I want to make something that is going to work and work well for me and my Husband (and the rest of the extended family and friends if required?).

To be completely honest I think that the economy is going to completely collapse very soon, within the next year or so and I want to setup a system that will be as self suffient as possible. Solar powered, the whole nine yards...

What we are actually thinking of doing is setting up a system in a used shipping container... so that it can be locked and not out in the open. harder for pests to get to maybe?
has anyone done this? or seen it done before?

I have seen Hydroponics systems in Shipping containers, but not aquaponics... as far as I understand, there would be any issues with it?

I also want to look into all sorts of self sustaining practices -Canning, Perserving, Dehydrating, Rabbit Farming, Chickens, Goats? I am very new to all of this but very keen to learn and give it my all.

I would be so grateful for any advice or comments...

Thanking you all in advance....


Cheers,
Krystal


Oh and I realise that this website is based in Perth, which is awesome! Go Perth!

Hi and welcome.

Shipping containers are quite expensive and are poorly insulated (unmodified) and obviously won't let light in for your plants. If you're trying to become more self sufficient the last thing you want is to invest in energy hungry grow lights to grow your plants, which you'd have a very expensive project building an off-grid solar array big enough to support.

Unless you are suggesting housing only the fish tanks in the shipping container, I would suggest considering instead building a well insulated, lockable greenhouse to house your aquaponics system in which has more advantages for your plants.. unless you're trying to hide something with the container?

If you're that worried about security you could install galvanised mesh in the greenhouse but would look pretty ugly.

It's all be done though. Nothing new under the sun.




The above image is a nice concept, though in practice you'd want to keep the growbeds as low as possible above the fish tank to minimise pump head heights which in turn reduces your electrical loads (smaller pumps required), which is an important factor to consider if you plan to run it all on solar

Don't know if your climate is anything like Atlanta Georgia, but Podponics is a company that is doing exactly what you suggest. Here is a link to an article about the company. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a ... ng/247391/
You might send them a note for suggestions

IMO.. it's an expensive, energy inefficient, unsustainable concept...

Well if your pests are humans and bears, then perhaps being able to lock it up might be worth while.

However, the concept that a greenhouse will protect your plants from pests is flawed. To create a greenhouse that could do that, you would have to have very strict bio-security, positive air pressure, air lock entry and never bringing in anything from the outside without sterilizing it. Think clean room and showers and jumpsuits for every one entering/leaving the greenhouse. And the ventilation would need hepa filteration on it so the greenhouse would likely require pretty extensive HVAC since simply opening vents would let pests in.

Greenhouse production tends to have pretty heavy pest problems with certain pests compared to outdoor plant production. In greenhouse, aphids, whitefly, thrips, spider mites are all often (not always) more devastating than out in the open. Out in the open, caterpillars (moths) grasshoppers and larger animal pests may be more of a problem. Biggest drawback I see to not having a greenhouse is that rain can wash off pest treatments and make you have to apply them more often. Truth is, a roof to keep rain off and I would skip the sides of the greenhouse any day in my climate. Grass hoppers haven't done enough damage to make me want to screen them out and the caterpillars are really the easiest pests to spray for in aquaponics since the Bacillus Thurengensis products work so well against them and are safe for aquaponics.
If only I could figure out how to stop the ants that farm the aphids!!!

Yep.. in hindsight, I don't know why I posted that image

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my previous post, but I was actually trying to steer the orignal poster away from shipping containers all together

And I agree TCLynx - the main goal with a greenhouse is to extend the growing season in certain climates, not to vainly attempt to create an enclosed pest free environment which doesn't work

I'm not completely familiar with the climate Krystal has to contend with, but where I live we get both very harsh summers and winters/frosts. The town just down the road from me has been named as one the most vulnerable towns in the state to climate change in a federal government report. A few summers ago, in one of the worst droughts in the towns history, the whole place looked like a moonscape with not a living thing in miles. We've only moved onto this property 9 months ago, and have been desperately working at planting trees for the next impending summer which is forecast to be a shocker with El Nino weather patterns now returning to us So a greenhouse like structure where I can drape shadecloth over in the summer (sides open) and polyfilm in the winter is mighty handy and allows me to grow a lot more crops. Though a lot of my aquaponics is done outside of any greenhouse anyhow as m2 greenhouse space is notoriously expensive as you would know.

Thanks for all of your repsonses.... I guess it quite evident how much of a newbie I really am...

I was thinking id have to insulate and everything, those things get hell hot and stuffy in Summer average summer in Perth, I dunno - 30-45 degrees so whats that like 80 -115f? ... and winter is rainy,windy and a bit chilly but no snow....

I have no idea how much power the grow lights use either...but we were thinking of cutting the roof of the container out and replacing with some clear roof sheeting?

With all the info you have given, about it not working... what do you think is the best way to go? If you could start with a clean slate? we will be buildign a new house on about 5 acres.

I have often thought about designing my new kitchen with a room attatched with a full system... "Oh i feel like some squash for dinner" pop into the "Pantry/Garden" and grab a squash!?
Maybe this is a bit of a stretch hey!?

We already have several Shipping containers too so they would just need to be decked out some how? not sure HOW I would do it but I thought id ask some experts like yourselves before bothering to give it a try... ?

I guess it all depends on your budget and what you wish to acheive. If I were you, I'd start by planning how many fish you wish to harvest out of the system per month, then calculate how many growbeds you'd need to provide adequate filtration for the number of fish you're keeping.

A good rule of thumb is for every 50 fish you'd need 1000 litres of growbed volume.

Regarding cutting the roof out of the shipping container, even if you did so, the plants would only receive a few hours of midday sun in winter when the sun is directly overhead, and then the rest of the day the inside of the container would be in shade due to the solid side walls? Full sun is ideal for maximum vegie growth.

Shipping containers have their uses but I don't really see them being all that useful for growing veggies. If you must use them as some part of aquaponics, insulate them and use them as your fish tank shelters since you want to keep the sun off your fish tanks. But on a farm, the containers are probably of even more use for certain kinds of storage rather than trying to shoo horn them in for something they are not really designed for.

For temperature stability of fish tanks in a subtropical climate (Where I live in inland central Florida USA, I think of it as sub tropical, we usually don't get quite the extreme heat that much of OZ can get since it tends to be humid here but it is possible to get to 40 C in an extreme hot spell in a dry spring and we do get to -4 C on occasional hard freeze nights but some winters we don't get hard freezes and some summers we don't get much above 34 C)
I like to recommend at least 300 gallons or 1000 liters of fish tank as the minimum fish tank size and I think a perfect home system would have at least two, three or Four such sized fish tanks hooked to a total of twice as much grow bed and have sump tanks to handle the water level fluctuation. And then have another system to use for quarantine of new fish.
Remember that you can grow a heck of a lot of veggies with really not that much fish.

Definitely, you want to grow your veggies out under the sun if at all possible, there is no way to make growing veggies under artificial lighting more efficient that under the sun if you are in a location/climate with sun. (Now if you are growing in the arctic circles or something extreme like on the moon then artificial lighting will become a more viable option.) If you are in a climate and location with some good sunshine, there is little point in trying to re-create it artificially. Electricity gets expensive and lighting is expensive and then you have to ventilate or it gets too hot..................

I know people who live in higher latitude climates that in winter time they have deep snow and even on sunny days the low sun angle and short days means that greenhouse production requires supplemental lighting and in those cases, sometimes is almost makes sense to grow inside where it is easier to insulate but to make a system viable in those conditions, the whole design needs to be based around the lighting and climate control to make sure it is as efficient and useful as possible since it won't be viable if the lighting is an afterthought. When using artificial lighting, many plants get lighting for 16-20 hours a day since no artificial lighting quite equals the sun.

You will want to try to place most of your plant beds so that they will get at least 6-8 hours of full sun in winter, come summer you may need to add some shade cloth to keep from cooking your plants. If you have to make a choice between more sun in morning of afternoon, Morning sun is the best. In the summer mid day through late afternoon shade will be the most helpful.

You can use your shipping containers for your fish tanks... easy to insulate.. heat/cool...

Put your growing systems outside in the sunlight... that's where plants grow best...

Thanks for your feedback!

I'd just buy a full system from BYAP if you're cashed up and want it to "Just Work"
Like Faye's system