Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Everyone,

Its been a long time since I posted on here. Have been busy with work and other hobbies!

However, I decided it was time to fire up the glasshouse again. Its started many years ago with carnivorous plants (Nepenthes) and then I did a stint with a small NFT hydro setup.

Its latest iteration is a goldfish powered AP system running one of my original NFT setups on one side, a 100L biofilter and 500L poly tank. The NFT is 90mm pipe, running 51x 45mm net pots (each with a cotton wick to bring water/nutrients to the seedlings until they put their roots down).

Its been running for two weeks with 15x 7-80mm comets.

In the next week or so I'm adding 4x 1/2 blue barrels. 2x will be clay ball/ebb & flow and 2x floating raft.
My plan is to also convert to a sump setup soon and add a few vertical growing channels.

AJ

neat system

Hi gang,

Thought I'd update.

Only changes have been:

- I took the biofilter offline (plant responded relaly quickly
- Sump is in but not yet hooked up.
- Changed the hanger system to an adjustable one so I could the water hight spot on in the NFT.

However, you cna see that I've had some god growth in the 5-6 weeks.

Coriander, pak choy and cos lettuce are taking off in the NFT.

The rafts are mint, Vietnamese mint, water cress, perennial basil, kangong.

I have some fittings on order to hook the sump up and I am still not 100% decided on how I am going to set up the right side of the glasshouse. I am still thinking a mix of eb/flow and deep water.

If you took out the biofilter. Do you have anything there to help along nitrification? Or just FT water straight into the NFT lines?

Yep, just tank water into NFT for now.

However, I took the biofilter offline at about the time most of the plants in the NFT put their roots down. So in theory, that is now where the nitrification process would be occurring, thereby replacing the biofilter.

Since taking the biofilter offline I have also increased feed, stopped adding SeaSol the goldfish have grown and plants look better. They were slightly pail with slow growth when the biofilter, so all good for now.

I suspect once the ebb and flow comes online, I'll need to up fish biomass and feed to keep the nutrients high enough.

Oh, and the AP lettuce is far outgrowing the same lettuce I have in the garden.

AJ

Make sure you keep checking your nitrites & ammonia.