Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello! I'm just putting together this prototype for a drop in aquaponic system that could be built in a day and produce beautiful healthy vegetables off of goldfish or lightly stocked koi or native catfish. I'd love any and all opinions and criticisms, constructive or otherwise.

Below is the first prototype, a 300 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank with an integrated redwood media bed. I also plan to make a smaller 150 gallon system and a larger 300 gallon system with a double long bed. I'll hope to post pictures of those as well, as they materialize.

Thanks!

Nice. What's there to criticise?

What type of timber is that?

Looks good to me.

Are you making them to sell?

Only thing I might add is to make sure you have a gravel guard. But you don't have gravel in yet, so you could still be on it.

Very nice

Redwood "con common"

It's amazing looking in the attics and basements of all these old houses here in the San Francisco bay area of California, you see nothing but old growth, full dimension, heart Redwood lumber. They chopped down whole forests and built out this whole area and it's all still there in every bodies basements and attics. Now they still sell little red and white baby redwoods at the lumber yard.

You can still find a patch here and there in the state and national parks of old growth redwood forest and it's pretty amazing.

Do they have redwood available in Australia?

I am working to make them available in the SF bay area. I wish to respect the forum rules, moderators will hopefully direct me if I step outside of good manners to my host in that regard.

I've not seen it for sale at the lumber yards around my neck of the woods, though according to this one website I've found it is available in Australia (http://www.woodsolutions.com.au/Wood-Species/Redwood)

It looks like a beautiful timber indeed. Hope they are logging it sustainably though. That's one point worth considering - if you are selling them, the market you will be targetting will typically be people who are concerned about sustainabilty, clean food and will be generally well educated people up to date on environmental issues and chemicals in the food chain etc etc. At least this was my experience here selling aquaponics kits in australia.

Freight is the biggest challenege here in australia when selling aquaponics systems, as they are bulky items and the transport companies charge by dimensions not weight

Is the type you've used classed as hardwood or softwood? is it treated at all?

You can get it and I have a source.

Beautiful timber, rot resistant, fire resistant and sustainable because the stuff in Australia is from a plantation.

Good luck finding it in a hardware though.

Is there anyway to see the fish or access to the FT? I would think if you are raising ornamentals this would be of more importance. Clean design btw.

Little baby aquaponics.

Very nice! I'm sure those will sell like hot cakes

Just updating the pictures with a bit of wood finish on there now.

The front shelf is on a hinge so that it can open, it's true though the fish are a bit hidden and out of sight in this design. Good for growing vegetables, good for keeping your fish safe but not quite ideal for goldfish watching. I might have to design another version that emphasizes the fish pond aspect more so in the future.