Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all.

I stumbled on this on reddit.




The builder is a member on here, but I don't think he wants to toot his own horn too much.

It seems promising, he said he'll share every step, including costs, mistakes, and has a decent budget to get it going. I'm very curious, and subbed to it straight away.

Did he say?:



That might get confusing.

Did he say?:



but only:



or 232m2 of growing area?

I am looking forward to seeing this progress. Especially how the concrete performs over time. At $60 per m3 for concrete that is pretty cheap.

I think he's done quite well for himself in his last job, and instead of buying a shiny new car, he's building himself a massive AP setup. Ryan's got to do what Ryan's got to do. Makes sense to me

I think it said 2500 feet squared. Which should work out to 760 Meters Squared. I think he's trying to work out how far his money will go, either way, I think it's going to be an impressive system.

Either you or I needs to sack our calculators.

My conversion feature is only giving me 232m2

wow this guy seems awesome. it's good he has the luxury of not being pressured into making money and is using the opportunity to share info with the world!! best of luck to him.

interested to see how all the concrete works out.I guess he's not concerned with the resale value of his system components. But following the UVI model should lead him on the path to success

I used google.

https://www.google.com/search?q=2500+feet+to+meters

I don't know how to sack google.

EDIT...

https://www.google.com/search?q=2500+fe ... rs+squared

Helps if you search for the right term. I should know better than to challenge Stuart on maths.

Still an impressively large area.

Let me clarify.

Total land area available is 60x40m, or 2400sqmt.

The area of aquaponic rafts will only be 2500ft2 or 232m2.

https://www.google.com/search?q=2500+fe ... qft+to+sqm

Columnmn your link is length, and not square footage/meters.

The design has changed completely since the initial announcement.

Here is the breakdown if interested:




(Edit: Fixed it for you Ponicwars, thanks for sharing! The trick is to copy just the code after the "v=" part of the youtube link into the youtube tag -DD)

Tease

Thanks for sharing. I do believe you should add another step to your filtration process. Using your biofilter as a suspended solids clarifier is not a good idea since you will either become anaerobic very quickly due to solids buildup on your media or you won't be providing proper suspended solids filtration due to your media being kicked around and not retaining the suspended solids. You could just add a static filter with a clean out on the bottom before your biofilter that will catch the suspended solids and you can clean it out as you see fit. I'm not a huge proponent of vertical growing either due to my experience with the labor requirement and lower yields of the lower plants (due to shading fron the higher positioned plants). I've been told by professionals that your yield on a DWC is equivalent to a vertical system, but don't have any actual data myself. Best of luck.

Hey Samuel,

I hear you on the bio-filter/fine solids filter. I'll show you later what I ended up deciding on, and how it works. Yes there is media, but it's not bio-balls, persay.

Vertical may have no advantages over DWC, for me it was just a cost/time/translation issue. Will be interesting to see how the shading affects growth. These towers can be turned while operating, so that may help to distribute the shading by making a quarter turn each day.

Congratulations on a very interesting build, Ponicwars! It does seem intuitive to manage fish and plants separately some how. Are you able to calculate the waste streams flowing out of the fish enterprise and the plant enterprise? of the fish vs. plant enterprises which one has the better roi and returns to labor and management? Why not just focus and specialize with the better of the two enterprises?

Excellent question.

Because I am not a specialist at anything.

Your talk of ROI and enterprises is wise, but this is not a serious business model. This is me, doing what I enjoy doing, and if I can pay the monthly overhead of feed and electricity from selling a little fish and produce I'm happy. I don't mean to sound disinterested in making money, because that is not the case. I simply want to re-enforce that at the end of the day, this will be massive learning process for myself, and not a means of necessary income.