Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello Everybody,

It's a great honour to be learning all about this exciting world of Aquaponics from you people. I love the way that some people in the world actually care about our planet.

I've heard of fish farming before and of hydroponics, but always thought the latter was for pot smokers! How wrong I was and what a wonderful concept!

Anyway, my name is Zak. I'm an Englishman, living in the Philippines for over 3 years now.
I am a newbie to Aquaponics and am about to set up my first system in my 2br apartment on the 27th floor of a pretty fancy neighbourhood in Metro Manila. Not sure how that will go down with the condo management company buy hey, let's see what happens....

I'm also in the process of designing a family home somewhere out in the countryside and was intending on getting some extra land so my wife could start a flower farm, which has been her dream since childhood..

That was until I learnt about Aquaponics just a few weeks ago and the future of farming being indoors and vertical!
I couldn't believe it possible that one could grow flowers and fish and fruits and even crops in an indoor multi storey environment. "How cool is that" I said to myself.

So, with that in mind, along with the environment now a major factor to include in my plans, I have scuppered the idea of buying a large lump of land and have instead opted for something somewhat smaller, that could potentially operate on multi storeys, that could sustain my family, my extended Filipino family and in years to come, maybe a whole community in case of typhoons or other emergency situations!

So, getting to the point..............and yes, I am running before I walk. I haven't even got one system set up yet and already I am looking 5-10 years down the road, but planning is important, and before building a house to incorperate extra space for spuds and shrimp I'd really like to know the viability of the whole thing.

I attach a photo for anybody who may care to comment or give some friendly advice.
(Please forgive my appalling CorelDraw skills)

Please note that each layer/level would represent an extra storey of the property, with the fish/sump being on the ground floor or basement.
The whole operation will be run indoors using LED lighting and will be solar powered.
Probably looking at around 100sq/m per floor

Having read quite a bit on fish slightly higher than crop.....all well and good but really don't want a million gallons of water going from top floor of the house to the bottom in case of an emergency.


Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I look forward to being a part of the Community

Howdy Greenfingers and welcome to the forum...

Though as far as the future of farming being indoors and vertical? Nup....

You have plenty of sunshine over there and sunshine is free, use it.. And pumping water to a height is expensive and inefficient, the lower you can keep everything the better you'll be..

You definitely want to be utilizing land if it is available. I have a small system indoors and trust me when i say, growth is far more impressive and easy outside

Zak both Earthbound & Rsevs3's advise is the way too go.

There are quite a few forum members in PI and some in Metro Manila see if you can go and have a chat with any of those guys and get a bit of local knowledge before you start your system.

Buy that large lump of land and follow your dream, and now you know what can be done that lump of land could even be smaller and cheaper to buy.

+1 on everything said

and... the cost of building a structure strong enough or renovating an existing one to the standards necessary to hold the weight and manage the plumbing for such a system would be far greater than a large greenhouse on ground level.
Indoor growing could really only be competitive right now in a severely cold climate where there is a lack of natural light and a long transport route of goods being imported... and even then I think it would be growing specialty greens maybe micro greens and herbs.. since these are in demand fresh and you can get a bit of money for them and they require minimal sunlight compared to flowering crops.

But like the others have already said.. you have lots of sunshine and perhaps land too? use it... and you can still grow vertical to a degree with Zipgrow towers or similar

Oh and also as far as your diagram goes... for the large type of system you are talking about it is way more complicated than DIY backyard stuff... you need to think about filters (commercial ones) bio digesters, nutrient profiles of particular crops (different plants different systems with varying nutrient demands), ways of isolating sick fish and equipment for grading fish, fish processing and automated feeding systems. ways of isolating different crops and parts of systems for maintenance and the different nutrient demands of the plants etc.

Thank you all so much for your advice.

My heart bleeds

I was really wanting to keep my footprint to a minimum, utilise a small space and grow 'up' as and when time, money and experience allowed.

I do feel that land space is quickly drying up around the world, even in parts of Africa, and what with global population doubling every 100 years or thereabouts, my micro-plan seemed to be a nice way forward!

However, you guys are the pro's and I really respect your feedback.


@Earthbound....I wasn't referring to our generation or the next, but with a few generations the only way is up!

Please don't misunderstand me....What you're doing is truly amazing. I was just thinking a little further down the line on behalf of humanity.

Back to the topic......

On the basis of different plants/flower/veggies requiring different amounts of light/nutrients etc.....
I will go back to the drawing board, do some more studies and have a re-think.

Thanks again guys

Don't be too disheartened.. while the footprint of an AP system on many different storeys in a building would be much less than the same system on ground level, you can fit more into the same space with AP than dirt farming.. plants can be much closer to each other as they are not fighting for nutrients and if you take a look at BRIGHT AGROTECHs website and Nates Zipgrow towers you can see how much fits in a small space using vertical spaces http://www.brightagrotech.com

Thanks for that Tom,

I'm going all in with Zak n the beanstalk! lol

I wonder if I could make these from natural bamboo?

That stuff is everywhere, grows so fast and so tall, and I've seen bamboo almost 15cm across.

That'll do the trick me thinks.

Cheers

Got another option I am considering. A hybrid, part indoor part outdoor with staggered build on a hill so not so vertical. Will do some fancy graphics once I've seen the land.

I bow to you my lords and ladies.......