Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,
Just bought a house in Darwin and starting my first gardening projects.

First on the rank will be some wicking beds in the front of the house (which receives afternoon sun). We are going to place these fairly close to the house so that it offers some shade to help stop the house heating up ion the afternoons.

I will be making these out of merbau decking wood, and corrugated iron sheets as the wife says that the stuff the outside world sees has to be respectable.

After I have these up and running I am thinking of doing an aquaponics setup in the back garden with IBCs. Time will tell if I can source them at a reasonable price up here.

Welcome to darwin. Between $50-100 for ibc up here. Good luck with your built.

Cheers

Welcome eggbert, good luck with the build, looking forward to the pics.

I've started with a couple of wicking beds.
The first one made from corrugated iron roofing sheets and pool decking, and is a lot straighter than it looks in the first photo.

It's not the prettiest thing, and I've made quite a few mistakes along the way, but it appears to be working and the eggplant, broccoli, toms, red onions, spinach and bok choi appear to be thriving so far in the square foot sections I've put them in.
.


The next wicking bed is an ibc I cut and cleaned up. I've only planted half or so far as I ran out of the stones I was using for a base layer.



Anyone in Darwin got a recommendation for somewhere to get sand/ gravel and soil? I got this load from Avanti in Vanderlin Drive but if there is cheaper I'm listening

Does anyone in the Darwin region know anywhere i could get some 44 gallon drums?

I've tried a few different avenues but the only place I've seen them were crappy ones at the dump shop. The 2nd hand building supplies place had none when I last went and was charging OTT for them anyway.

I've found a couple for $25 each but they previously had a biodegradable cleaning fluid in them, so not sure how goods they would be as grow beds or wicking beds

biodegradable sounds good, better than nasty chemicals.

I got mine from minetec in East arm for $10 each. prewashed but no label. Guy said they had some acids in them but nothing poisonous.

I read that a while ago and went for drive looking for them at East Arm but didn't find them.

Sent from my MB526 using Tapatalk

Hello,
We are currently setting up an aquaponics system at Dripstone Middle School and would love some local knowledge!
Anyone keen to advise and recommend economical ways to build a sustainable system?
We can post some pics of what we've done so far soon.
Thanks

I would like to offer my place for an excursion, but we just changed to wet season produce and that means there is not much to see. Maybe when it is growing again.

Would be best for you start your own thread and describe your system and put some pictures/plans in there and you will get lots of help and answers.

@Gwydion what at season foods have you put in?

We've got spinach, eggplant, chillis and Thai toms still all going well.
I'm not a big fan of okra but might try one or two plants. Kang kung is also about to go in but not she what else to plant right now. Gardenate.com doesn't have many suggestions for this time of year.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

I put some new cherry tomatoes in but wasn't very lucky with them over the wet. I got kang kong, sumi long cucumbers and some stringy beans. I have some seed going as well... More kang kong, capsicum and some winged beans, they went ballistic last year (young leaves and young whole beans for salad) and it says you can use mature beans for stews but they need to be cooked for a couple of hours or dried beans to make a malt drink. The roots can be used like potatoes but they didn't look that big. The flowers of the bean plant taste like mushrooms... A weird all-arounder. And the chickens go nuts for all parts of the plant. My missus wants o get some climbing spinach on Monday.

Thanks for the tip on the winged beans. Added a few young leaves and flowers to a salad tonight SBD was pleasantly surprised. Need to plant a few more out thigh as we only seem to be getting one been every couple of weeks.

Last year i had one winged bean plant in the system. It grew 4m wide and 1.2m high and killed everything else in the gbs. Will keep the plants smaller this year. But we had hundreds of flowers and than beans. I actually liked the flowers best... Munching while walking past.