Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We like to live a healthy lifestyle and only heard of AP about a year ago. Since then, it's been on my mind and this winter I'm doing something about it. Several months ago, we tried getting our feet wet with a simple Hydroponic setup and some lettuce, spinach, kale, and arugula from http://www.mypatriotsupply.com (a bit pricy but non-gmo and fresh seeds). Well, it was fun but short lived... our setup only allowed for 10 net pots and now we are out of fresh lettuce (spinach, kale, & arugula were small and short lived) . I've started more but we need a bigger system to accommodate our families needs.

Growing Arrangements:
We live in a ranch home with a full but unfinished basement. All of the open, unused space below our feet should be good for something, right? I've got a very large utility room that will be used for our AP room. The temperature down there maintains about 66 degrees F year round (I'm sure floor temp is even lower) and the lettuce loved it. I've included a design I drew up using Google SketchUp (free & simple CAD software). It is based off others we liked after searching around online. It seems to save space and allows use of vertical space. I plan on using 10' sections of 4" PVC pipe. Should be about 50 plants (depending on length of pipe I use) and that's as far as I have planned. I am not sure what way I want to go for the FT or FT's... I'm debating on whether I should build my own box/es with pond liners or use plastic livestock water tanks? I cannot use the big totes that many use because of the stairway access to the basement only has a 30" door opening. My wife dislikes my crazy idea of using a small above ground pool (but I like the idea of pre-constructed ). Ideally, we'd like to grow trout and/or perch, not sure if we are keen on tilapia. Plus I love the idea of just walking downstairs to catch fresh trout! She thinks that crawfish/yabbies would be awesome but to me they seem like they would be a lot of work (keeping them from killing each other?). My thinking on multiple tanks was to be able to rotate stock as they grow.

We plan on continuing with different lettuce varieties, as well as re-experimenting with the previously failed spinach, kale, etc... I believe they failed because we were late transplanting them from the starter cubes. I also anticipate that this is only the beginning of a much larger scale based on just about everybody's "first try" post I've read.

Any recommendations on tank size, number of fish, starter fish so I don't lose a ton of $ getting it up and running/balancing levels? I'm seeing about 1lb of fish per 5-10 gallons when looking around the web. Like I said, I'll have about 50 active plants going (starters are separate system) at a time.

Thank you in advance for the responses!

Seems like what you are missing is any bio-filtration and solids filtration for the Fish. Without these things will go south in this system pretty darn quick. In most of our systems aggregate (aka rocks, media) beds provide sites for nitrogen processing bacteria to attach. As the fish water passes through these beds the solids are trapped and the Ammonia is processed to Nitrite and then Nitrate which the plants can use. The number of fish you can stock is related to the amount of filtration you have.

To help you get some ideas I recommend reading the IBC of Aquaponics - the link is at the top of the page on the right but this should work - http://ibcofaquaponics.com/files/IBCofAquaponics.pdf. For estimates on fish stocking and some other basics start here as well - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6646

The potential is here for a really good system after you get a few things squared away.

Cheers

Thank you for the info Scotty435. I know I have to create an entire ecosystem (got some learning to do there), just trying to figure out scale. Will do a lot more learning before I attempt to get it going. In the mean time I want to figure out a project cost so i can budget for it.

There are so many ways to build a system, it's tough to give you budget advice before we get an idea of how the system is put together so I'm glad to hear you're looking through as much information as you can . Hust ask away if you have any questions, there's always someone around to help if they can.

My initial problem is basically a plant to fish ratio... if I'm actively growing 45-50 plants, how many fish should the system support? Isthere

There isn't one. More variables than I care to think about . The good news is it doesn't take many fish to get good plant growth. Check out RupertofOZ post part way down the page here - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18303&p=414065#p414065

Anything to do with fish stocking should be based on the filtration that your system has. Every system has some form of bio-filtration and solids filtration whether you see it or not. Try searching for fishless cycling and you can setup a biofilter without the fish until you get things figured out.

You have to have bacteria to convert the fish waste otherwise the ammonia won't break down. You'll probably get some bacteria clinging to the walls of your setup but if you don't have enough and you feed the fish too much then you get an Ammonia spike and the fish will die.

trout would grow fast, yellow perch are definitely slower growing... i've got an 8' ring type pool in my basement (unfinished) with tilapia, yellow perch and bluegill..i've had several tilapia spawns, but the yellow perch eat up the fry pretty quick - i've slowly gathered materials to replace the pool with a home-made rectangular tank, hopefully to build this summer.. but an 8' pool gives me and the wife 1 dinner of fish a week..
i've also fed the perch and bluegill crayfish and minnows,.. marmokreb crayfish are self cloning, i was putting smaller ones in (2" or less, over a couple hundred easily) to feed, but also put in quite a few 3" to 4" hoping they'd grow out.. out of at least 50 large crays that went into the pool, i found 7 when i harvested some fish.. i'm sure with trout you'd have zero growout, even with lots of hides - i had more hides than crayfish! i've gone through lots of rosy red minnows as well
i use 1/2 totes for growbeds, cut before bringing into the basement, frames come apart pretty easily and back together - i use masonry blocks to support the pallets that the totes come on

regarding stocking levels - you'll need some kind of mechanical and biological filtration - mechanical to remove solids, biological (surface area) for the good bacteria to grow - most here use gravel growbeds for filtration, and stock according to the volume of media filled growbeds - a good rule of thumb there is 20 to 25lbs (final grown out weight) of fish for every 100 gallons of growbed.. it took me a while to clean and haul 3 yards of river gravel into the basement..

Thanks for the responses






keith, good to know that I'm not the only one with dreams of an indoor trout pond! May I ask why you are considering replacing the pool? Are they not durable enough even indoors & out of the elements?



keith, that's why I'm trying to do NFT. I'd hate to try & undo the system if we ever decided to move.


As far as the filters go, I've got an idea on the solid remover. On the bio filter I still have some research to do. Read that some use net material to help harbor/house bacteria? I would rather not have a bunch of gravel.
On the trout/cray issue, crays would definitely have their own home... I believe they are a trout favorite! Does anyone here farm worms for feed or to help supplement fish diet? Ideally I'd like to have a completely free food source, that's why I'm getting into this. That way I can trim the grocery budget without relocating the $ to just feed the fish.

scotty435 - Let me see if I get what you are saying... any size (even a large indoor pond) will work on even a few plants so long as there is adequate filtration? Basically I am just running a big fish tank and using it to water my plants? If this is the case, I've been WAY overthinking this entire thing...!
For some reason I had the idea that I would need enough plants to do the filtering for me just a solids filter and without a biofilter. This makes things much easier.

there's a great book on small scale aquaculture;
Small Scale Aquaculture [Steven D. Van Gorder]
you have to have enough surface area for the bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrites, and the bacteria that convert the nitrites to nitrates.. start with a radial flow filter (rff) into a media filter (brushes, netting, mattalla etc) into a moving bed biofilter (mbb)
in aquaponics a good "rule of thumb" is to turn over the volume of your ft water about 1x per hour.. so you'd only need a portion of that flow that returns to the ft to go into your nft..
i've had the pool running for 3 years now, it's holding up ok,,, if i keep using it, i'll replace the 2 1.5" drains with a single 2" drain, but it's just not an efficient use of space, that's why i'd like to build a rectangular tank..
oh, and re:worms.. lots of red wigglers in my growbeds.. whenever i've set up media filters to provide extra filtration to the system, the media always ends up with lots of worms in it - i've been using bird netting and those big floor buffing pads in barrels for filters

It really is a lot like using a fish tank to water your plants but you're not removing the water from the tank. It's a balancing act with the Fish on one side while the Bacteria and Plants are on the other. In the short run the bacteria are a lot more important than the plants because Ammonia and Nitrite are much more toxic then Nitrate.

If you get the solids taken care of and if you size the bio-filter right or even have excess bio-filtration then the bacteria can do their job which is to convert Ammonia to Nitrate. Nitrate isn't particularly toxic to fish but you don't want it building up in the system to really high levels and that's where the plants come in since they use the Nitrate.
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So what you're setup is missing is a place for the bacteria to do their job and a way to remove the solids. For most of us this is the grow bed, which does both, but if you don't want a grow bed, you can build a couple or more filters like Keith mentioned, put them between the fish tank and the channels with your plants to

1. trap the solids (which would smother the plant roots and kill the plants and also irritate the gills of the fish) (this would be something like a Radial Flow Filter or a Swirl Filter)

2. process the Ammonia and Nitrite (which would kill your fish) and produce Nitrate (which your plants use to grow) (This would be done by some type of bio-filter/s)

Once you've got the solids filter going, the bio-filter cycled, and the plants growing your Ammonia and Nitrites should be zero and your Nitrates might be as well.

It really is pretty straightforward even though it sounds complicated.

Unless I missed something no one has really mentioned the lights... I guess Tony didn't ask about it so maybe that's why but it seems like a pretty big point if your trying to keep costs low.
Have you thought about what type of lighting you will have and how much electricity it will take to drive it?

Yep, didn't even think of lights yet.

I'd also consider options other than the swimming pool, like stock tanks for instance (if you can get them in of course).

i wouldn't be able to get a stock tank of any size into my basement..
re lights.. i'm using regular "shop lights" - 32watt, 48" flourescent lights.. i found fixtures for about 12bucks (holds 2 bulbs) at walmart....for an IBC growbed (1/2 of an IBC) i've used 3 or 4 pairs of lights.. i'm trying out a 200 watt hps light on one bed
i use 1 warm and 1 cool bulb in each flourescent fixture, and have grown lots of greens/spices

I'm running T8 shop lights with 6500k bulbs like keith is. They are the most economical I've been able to find. On the pool, again it's the most economical option I have come up with, shy of building some large boxes & using pond liners...

I wouldn't mind throwing in a grow bed or two. Seems like it would open up the variety I could grow.

Keith, I'm almost right in line with your thinking. Several smaller tanks could grow little critters for feeding fish. Was also thinking of a worm farm for trout food as well. I know they prefer to eat bugs & crustaceans over plants.