Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

yes it is but its highly debatible... but DWC has the advantage over Media bed in that they are extremely hard to clog with solids.. I'm starting to get clog spots in my bed.. it isnt affecting growth.. but I should have placed a media filter after the MT to prevent large solids carryover... but media is alot better for increased surface area for biological growth.. but thats what the MT is for.. ammonia and nitrite are already zero after they leave the MT..

Looks awesome cookie! Is this a completely separate system or does it tie in with your others?

completely separate system.. its going to be DWC GB.. going to see if media GB makes a difference..

ok so a bit of an update.. everything is still growing great so far. but I'm getting anaerobic areas in GB.. so I'll hada design something to prevent that from occuring in the future.. but all in all I'm pleased with the growth so far.. got alot of stuff growing on 300g of fish food per day.. without any chemical additions.. I don't even have to buffer system.. seems the bacteria is balancing off everything.. ok pics.











Happy Growing!!

Those are some happy looking plants. How many/type of fish are supporting this system?

Talipia is the fish type.. the amount I can't say for sure.. they multiple quickly and its passed 100.. but actually less is better.. but properly Mineralization is the key.. a balance between heterogeneous bacteria and autotrophic bacteria is fundament as well as introduction of predators... one thing to note.. nematodes and protozoa are strictly heterogeneous so they will be highly limited in a system where fish solid waste is removed to frequently. because most of the organic carbon is within the solid fish waste..

But the protazoa wouldn't be limited if you did an offline mt tank where say you would only introduce no more than 10% of your MT tank volume daily to hydroponic beds right?

Holy cow, you're crazy-level inspiring. I was about to complement the growth and grower, when I read about "nematodes and protozoa " wow, I mean wow, we can take this pretty far if we want. Beg to ask, how do we add these little guys to our systems? How do we monitor these? Is it done by observation of the system as a whole. This is so cool, thank you

well I thought Aquaponics is a very isolated system and although is a great situation when coming to minimizing pest and root diseases.. it also limits the amount of beneficial bacteria within the system because there aren't much external source inputs into the system.. so what I did is created an environment for the bacteria to live in then I used humus to inoculate that environment and slowly introduced a liquid energy source in small amount like sugar to fuel growth and maximize mineralization.. the humus is really only needed once.

This is how it looks when I develops..




some fluffy like material called biofloc.. but its actually a mixture of bacteria fungi protozoa and nematodes will also graze on them as well.. whats released is fully chelated forms of nutrients not only iron but calcium magnesium and so on..

@Boss however if heterogeneous bacteria colony starts to become to large compared to autotrophic bacteria colony serious nutrients lockouts will start to occur.. let image it like this.. ammonia is the building blocks to the two types of bacteria however the end products are completely different to each other.. autotrophic bacteria are oxidizers and hence your main producers of nitrates.. sulfates.. phosphates.. and they products leads to decreased in pH because H+ ions are given into solution.. however heterogeneous bacteria assimilate ammonia.. in other words it doesn't product a direct Nitrogen products but instead it uses the ammonia to create protein in the form of biomass... However heterogeneous bacteria are the main decomposers of solid waste because they need the carbon within the waste to survive and respire. when they do this carbon bond chains are broken and whatever it was connected to like nitrogen or sulphur etc.. are released from the waste. to be continued.. finger hurting

All is good and looks great. But the right terminology is heterotrophic bacteria.. Carry on I am impressed by your growth. It seems you are making leaps in improvements!

heterotrophs bacteria is what I meant to say thanks swed!! and yea the improvements are outstanding to me as well

One of my goals is to grow toms as good as you cookie. Love it!


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Thanks alot.. much appreciated!!