Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi, Been sneaking around posting photos in different threads but now it's time to make one dedicated.

Been running multiple systems in multiple locations.
Supposed to setup more systems in the future but I'm waiting for workers to finish off the buildings they are supposed to be on.


First of all my baby system, a 'Lean' MVP (minimum viable product). Small backyard system, created out of frustration. My initial partner whom was supposed to work with me setting up a commercial system backed out. We bought a lot of supplies already and it was so frustrating to see pumps (and very expensive media) being unused.
So i setup two small 300 Liter wash-bucket/storage tanks. Digged them in the soil and setup a growbed straight above it. Plain simple nothing fancy. To start it off i basically threw every seedling I had around the house and a couple of lettuce seeds. It became quite a random forest.

Starting technicalities, Fishless cycled. Waited for 2 weeks. Added a dash of seaweed extract every day. Started growing straight away. System now runs around 6.8/7. 0.25 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0 Nitrates


This was around, January. 1Month old.
Each run by individual pump, what is way to strong so there is a very elaborate (and stupid designed) overflow so I won't ruin the pump.

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-February onwards.

Sweet basil, grows about 1CM a day. From seedling to currently 77CM high. (with daily harvesting for home consumption)


February onwards.






February/March, Tomatoes grew like wildfire. Had to start supporting them.





Currently last photos I took at march 16


Beautiful baby Basil from seedling


Constant harvest of Tomatoes and look who's right next door Bell peppers!


Eggplants starting to flower (counted around 12 Flowers per plant)



Some of the older babyleave lettuce that survived my eating habits


Baby eggplants are probably there when I come home



Without support these guys kept falling over. Look at that!


Who said food couldn't be pretty

The other systems.. (yes there are more, even more than I have pictures of!)

Someone hired me to help him out maintain his Aquaponic system. Very humble and wealthy man who wanted to show this as an explanatory system in his eco friendly housing. Even plans to sell complete housing kits running on grid tie solar with modular house materials and food production around the house including Aquaponics and fruit tree's.

So the first time I walked in, the system was not functioning properly. Bad design mostly.








WOW Oregano! I absolutely dreaded it being in the system. Oregano basically grows like this in AP or not


So over the month I've been redesigning it, replumbing some parts. Adding in some extras, fixing the pumps and overall maintenance. (it hurt me to see those plants in pain). Problems we're in the trend of, wrong kind of grow media, siphons not firing, incorrect plumbing, No (seriously!) testing of water qualities and most of all just growing stuff that grows easily in soil.


Let's have a look at it now, or atleast last week




Everybody is happy and growing like crazy


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Yesterday

Yeaahe lettuce!

Look at the height of that spinach..



Seems it's going the right way, after lots of hard work it's finally starting to bear some fruits. PH is still at a overall high (usually around 8.2/8.0). I'm slowly changing the media bed by bed to not disrupt the system and not kill off the already growing plants. I hope in the coming months once i finally get rid of this awful acidic rock that this system will be a complete wow factor to anyone who walks into the place.

Did I mention this is all powered by solar?

@laruko.89 - Hi, very nice looking. BTW what fish food are you using?

Regards

Impressive, how many barrels have you got going there?

There are 28 barrels at the moment.
With a framework for another 12 to be filled in the coming weeks

I feed them standard tilapia feeds, no idea where it comes from or what it consist of. There is a feed producer on the island so I expect it to come from there