Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All. This system is in North Carolina, USA at a juvenile facility. The 2,400 sq ft greenhouse is a training center for the students to learn about food production, closed systems thinking, social issues and culinary skills. At the end of the 8 week program, interested students have the opportunity to come with us to Haiti, and experience how aquaponics can be valuable in places of need. A transformational experience for troubled youths. Here are some images, please feel free to ask any questions and visit our website at

http://www.100gardens.org.

Unfortunately I cannot (by law) post any pictures of the students

There is a 20ft raft w/bench, a 20ft pipe system overhanging, and 5 replicated flood and drain systems for running controlled experiments. We have also added a 25ft aeration windmill

That is awesome! I think that it is a good law about not posting pictures of the students. We would not want that to come back to them later in life after the juvenile file has been sealed. Hopefully by the time they reach 18, they will have been rehabilitated, and the work you do certainly helps them get there.

Some updates from the greenhouse. The students are doing a great job!

This looks neat. Can you explain how your aeration windmill works or provide some links for further research?

Thanks,

AquaMissionary

The aeration windmill is used to aerate our sludge pond that we deposit our fish waste from the clarifiers. Once the water reached 600ppm we irrigate the raised beds with the solution.
The windmill is a passive aerator. When the blades spin a diagram is pumped shooting air though a line and into the sludge pond.
http://www.koenderswindmills.com

Charlie checking out some basil in the rafts. Lettuce and chives are growing in the flooded pipes overhead. This is not considered an nft because there is not a film of solution. The 3" pipe maintains about 1.5" of solution. This was done because the greenhouse cannot be accessed all the time and the water level gives us a buffer in case the pump goes out.

Basil in rafts



Chives in overhead pipes

Great system/program.

Love the last picture.

Are all the pipes on your not "nft" system 3"? So the pipes always have 1.5" of water in all of them? And whats the spacing of the levels?

Everything is looking very nice!

I've always been skeptical with the whole windmill aerators, look like they never work to me and from what people say too...

Hooray!! Love praying mantis's!

Are those wooden boards on your pipes? For structural support I suppose?

Here is a short video about the aquaponics system my students designed and built to be used as a training system for a school in Haiti.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKebZ21TrJQ