Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Next year in March I'm going to start to build my new Aquaponics system. However, I'm not into the whole flood and drain thing. I'm looking to do the NFT method.

My budget is around $1,000, I can get a 500 or 1,000 gallon tank from a friend. Plan on using multiple 10ft 6 inch PVC, and I already have a pump rated for 1,100 gallons.

Any suggestions on how to build this? I know nothing about plumbing.

There are sooo many different ways it can be done, but you'll need to incorporate some form of filtration in it as well.. Do a forum search for NFT and you will get some good info..

Any advice?

Really?

First of all welcome to the forum.

Second, get more money.

Third don't do NFT for your first system. While there is nothing inherently wrong with NFT both flood and drain or constant flood systems are very simple and a good design to learn on.

Particularly things like plumbing.

NFT is out of my league
But when I saw the heading '$1,000 Budget' I thought, "Wow, what I could build with $1,000"
Of course I'm only playing with a little IBC setup.

Care to share?

Sure. Well, when I put my little system together I overpaid for the IBC's and the media but I think I spent about $700 all told including pumps and the pine sleepers the IBC's are sitting on. And I did the simplest type of setup: the IBC's cut into fish tanks & grow beds. With the few additional hundreds of dollars I'd love to get another couple of IBC's to cut into more GB's, some more pine sleepers to make a deck under them and stands to keep them off the ground. And if I could squeeze it into the price, a decent battery so I could build a backup power supply (I have a trickle charger in the shed and an inverter I used to have in a 4WD for camping). But that might be pushing my luck. There are so many cool ideas I see in other people's 'My System' threads.

NFT is more complicated than flood and drain or constant flood which means it is harder to get right and can be more expensive especially on a small scale.

With NFT you need pump, FT, biofilter, solids filter and NFT channels. A good idea would be sump and digestor as well.

With Flood and Drain you need pump, GB, siphon or timer. A good idea would be a sump.

It would be a good idea for both systems to have a battery backup air pump.

I plan on having at least 100 plants in it. So any suggestion for anything on that scale? I want to be able to grow things like tomatoes, peppers, etc..

I already grow in soil too.

My suggestion would be to check out any salvage yeards nearby. Try and save money on the support structure - metal or timber frame that supports the tanks and grow beds. You then have more money to spend elsewhere like buying an extra pump to keep in the cupboard in case the main one goes titsup.

Regards, Martin.

I was able to find someone local that makes and does Aquaponic setups in my budget.

I got 12x6m lengths of 100mm pvc pipe for about AU$230.
I have 180 plant holes with largish spacing between holes.

I would also suggest maybe avoid NFT as a newbie, i made that mistake (i am growing on a garage roof) and am not having much luck at all, when i had a constant flood growbed attached, things in the bed grew A LOT better and it was in alot more shade than the NFT too.