Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Finally got around to replacing the clear tubing in my smaller system with PVC. No more accidents or algae in there!
Also, my broccoli is finally nearing harvest time. First sign of anything that looks like the broccoli I know and love to eat.



I've got a half barrel GB full of lettuce that's ready to harvest and eat, but I'm still trying to finish eating the last batch I harvested, so those will stay in the GB and keep on growing I guess. I'm now up to 3 strawberry plants in my IBC GB that are producing flowers/fruit, been picking quick snacks every couple days. Hopefully in a few months I'll be picking a handful or two every couple days.

Was wandering around in Lowe's last week, and noticed that they had 6x8' greenhouses on clearance, so I jumped on it. As a result, I've added 4 DWC tanks outside, about 22ish gallons each, to the system. Used a slab of blue board I had from a previous project, ordered another pump (because of the height difference). Had to remove my basement window, but I replaced it with some of the blue board, cut two holes in it for water supply and return pipes. After picking up the advice to run the drill in reverse, cutting through the plastic was *way* easier.

Anyhow, pics. I've got lettuce in one GB, spinach in another, and going to try broccoli in the left barrel half, and Tiny Tim tomatoes in the Right barrel half.



Also residing in the new greenhouse will be my strawberry gutter project, as well as a blueberry bush.


Today's harvest of lettuce. Decided to cut them a bit early because I wanted to thin out my smaller system, there is a build up of roots and some algea growing that I want to address and fix.

I've known for the past few weeks that I've needed to do something about all the roots in my small system, and finally got around to doing something about it. I harvested the lettuce I had growing in the GB, and started churning up the gravel. The water that flows into the GB pools underneath the spout, and algae was growing. Upon churning up the gravel, a ridiculous amount of roots were the obvious cause.

To separate the roots from the gravel, I scooped out about a gallon of gravel at a time into a 5 gallon bucket about half-filled with water. I used a broom handle to stir the rocks, causing the roots to float to the top. Then I used a smaller container to scoop out water and run it through an aquarium net to filter out the roots.


This is how many roots I got from the first bit of gravel.

I did this with about 1/3 of the GB, and ended up with a large baseball sized clump of roots (after squeezing out all the water). The rest of the GB still has a variety of plants growing, and I don't want there to be nothing growing. I'm pretty sure I'm washing away valuable bacteria anyhow, so I don't want to completely reset my entire system.

Moral of the story: I need to invest in more worms. I have tossed probably a dozen into the GB over the last few months, but I only saw one or two while cleaning...

Tomorrow I go to pick up some baby Trout to put into my system. A bit late in the season, but since I'm based in a basement, I should be able to keep them growing a good bit longer (hopefully). Figuring about 25 will be sufficient for my IBC. I've currently got the 4 small mouth bass in there, as well as a few goldfish and some minnows, but I figure once the trout get big enough they'll eat the goldfish and minnows, which is no big loss in my eyes.

My other half is busy for most of the weekend, so I'm planning to spend a lot of time working on the green house. I transferred a couple of lettuce sprouts into the DWC beds, but the "polar vortex" we're currently experiencing has made sure that nothing grows unless I'm constantly heating with a space heater. I'd like to put a regular door on the green house, as the zipper one that it came with sucks. As I'm drinking milk, I'm filling the jugs with water as heat sinks for out in the greenhouse, and I have a metal 55 gallon drum filled with water as the biggest heat sink. Lined the floor with a layer of pea gravel (renting the place, can't put down cement or I would in a heartbeat). That helped seal some of the openings along the bottom I hope.

Well, I got my Trout today. A private Trout hatchery just an hour away said if I came with a container they'd sell me Trout fingerlings at a buck a piece. I got a nice sturdy tote from Wal-Mart, a power inverter, and an aerator and headed over. Accidentally stumbled into the beginnings of a BBQ by pulling into a lake house on the property (in my defense, there are no signs, and it was the only building with vehicles, I assumed it was a front office).

Finally got to the right place, and I apparently looked lost enough to be the guy they were told was coming to get some fish, as one of the workers came right up to me. I gave him a 5 gallon bucket to bring me the fish in, and asked for about 25. I loaded them into the tote with some extra stream water, cut a hole in the tote lid for the air hose, and away I went. I could tell I had got more than 25, but I wasn't about to complain or count. Was a pain getting the half-full tote out of the back of my truck, up the steps of my house, and then down into the basement, but I got it there (albeit minus about a gallon of water).
Slowly started adding some of my tank water to the tote to get temperatures and pH levels equal, though I didn't actually check either. Also netted 3 of the fingerlings and tossed them straight into the tank to see how they would fair. About 5 hours later and they still looked happy as can be, so I checked the pH of the tank and the tote, both were about 8.2 (the water here in my part of Missouri is high pH at all times). Decided the temperatures were equal, and since the pHs were as well, figured I might as well put them all in.

Wanting an accurate head count, I netted them a few at a time and kept a running total on my phone.




Turns out the "about 25" I agreed upon and paid for ended up being no less than 83 Rainbow Trout fingerlings! Doing the math, that came out to about 38 cents/fish, which is about what I paid for my goldfish. Obviously this is far too many for a single IBC, but I'm not going to just flush 40+ fish down the drain right now, I'll have to keep my eyes open for another cheap IBC or two, and possibly expand the system I guess. Oh darn

Trout have problems when the water hits the upper 70s and with the hot Missouri Summer you're likely to loose them - very tough to keep the water temps down when the grow beds act as heat exchangers . Those of us that have similar troubles, start with larger fish that you can grow out to eating size before the hotter weather comes or figure some way to keep the system going and keep it cool.

I have a basement system, so the summer temperatures don't really affect my system. Last summer my water didn't hit high 70s at all. I believe it maxed out in the high 60s.

Been tossing around the idea of building a large single DWC grow bed for my greenhouse instead of having 4 small ones. So I spent the better part of the weekend constructing one:

I've got about 4 layers of plastic under it, because with one layer I got leaks due to some bad carpentry. Since I can't walk all the way around the GB anyhow, I added some extra height to the back for future options (like for tomato vines, etc). Now there is only one fill pipe for most of the distance, and one drain pipe. Much simpler and easier this way.
As I have the pump directly in my FT, I didn't have any filtration before the DWC GBs, I used a minnow sein and some extra plastic liner to create a Constant Flood area in the left 1/3 of the GB (with Lava Rock) to catch the big solids.
Dimensions are just under 3'x7'x1', or roughly 117 gallons (or 435 L).

When I took the old GBs out, the FT got extremely full when I returned as much water to it as I could. As a result, I had 6 Trout jump to their deaths, which brings my total down to 77. Now that the new DWC GB is filled with water, the FT is pretty low on water, so I'll be adding about 30 gallons a day as my buckets allow me to add dechlorinated water.

This week I'll have to find some time to plant some seeds. Especially now that the temperature has risen above freezing.

Water levels have been brought back up to satisfactory levels, and the Trout are still doing just fine. They've taken to bullying the smallest goldfish, and I've had to net two floating bodies. I'm interested to see if they pick on the bigger goldfish and/or the small mouth bass (the bass are about 6" long currently) when they get big.

I was working in the greenhouse today. I've actually had to start opening the door zippers during the day, as the sun heats it up to 100 F if I don't get some ventilation going quick. Anyhow, as can be seen from some of my pictures, I've got Grow-Grips with some rayon mop string as wicks. I "planted" them with lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and two kinds of tomatoes. Unfortunately, we had that "polar vortex" swing through and it got below freezing in the GH a few times, which I thought had ruined any chance of those seeds sprouting. But today I pulled a Grip out of it's hole to look at it, and noticed that the seeds have begun germinating. So I'm excited to see if they take off.


One of the lettuce plants I pulled to make today's salad. This one was probably the biggest single plant I've harvested yet.

Literally the size of my head.

Glad you didn't miss out on the lettuce because of the polar vortex. Trout are pretty neat but I hate when they jump out of the tank.

Cheers