Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone! My name is Dave (betcha couldn't of guessed that one from my forum name, eh? ) and my wife and I just got our first aquaponics system up and running. Here's some pics of the construction and early results. I've been lurking here on the site as the info here from all of you is terrific. Hope you like what you see and thanks again for helping out newbies like myself in venturing into the world of aquaponics.

First up...My big "Box o' water"...13'x5'x3' and approximately 1500 gallons...

The back platform for the media beds and swirl filter...

Plumbing of the media beds and feeder fish barrel completed.

Rock in all media beds and I'm now ready to introduce fish and get planting. Ph is at 6.73...close to ideal...

On 5/23, our first planting...

Pics taken 2 days ago. We've been enjoying salad greens for a couple of weeks now...

It's just cheating when you can use a mini digger to move the rocks. Takes all the fun out of digging, and lugging, and back breaking fun.

Looks good though, well done!

Muchas gracias my friend. Yeah, I love my tractor. We got it a few years ago and it is a godsend here on the property. We're off today to go purchase a few hundred Bluegill.

Just curious, why didn't you build a big long growbed the same as the fish tank next to the fish tank? You'd get far more useful grow space from it, and you can obviously build it if the tank hasn't blown out already.

I'm still learning. This is my wife's "brain child" as she really is the "gardener" and "artist"...I'm the "engineer". She tells me what she needs and I build it. We saw some folks using these and we had some, so I utilized them.

It's funny that you say that because I "pre plumbed" another outlet off the swirl filter and I was just discussing with my wife about me building out some long beds from the left over OSB I have from the main pond. Stay tuned and you just might see some new pics with just what you described in the very near future. A main pond of 1500 gallons can certainly support more than 4 little 30 gallon media beds, yeah?

This is looking awesome!! just curious, but what are the dimensions of that fish tank?

Gracias my friend. The main tank is 13'x5'x3'. I have to be honest, having never done anything like this before, I was a bit skeptical about how well it would work. Honestly, it has exceeded our expectations. The seedlings that we planted not just weeks ago are "exploding".

My wife made a little video describing our system with yours truly giving the narrative...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhK0pzybJpk

wow great looking system,

how have the bluegill held up?