Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everybody, I'm new here and looking for some help planning out my system. Before I go in to details about what I want to build I'll tell you a little bit about myself... my name is Rob, I'm currently 30 years old, I work as a mechanical engineer (although I haven't completed my degree, I've been in the field for a little over 13 years now) designing heavy trucks (fire trucks). My wife is a research assistant at Michigan State University and works in the horticulture department researching plant genetics. We purchased our first home together a little over a year ago and our goal is to be able to become as self sufficient for food as we can. We both love having a big garden and I would love to have fresh tomatoes year round, and will grow some of those green rabbit foods for her too (as well as just about any other fresh vegetables or fruits we can manage).

This past year I built a chicken coop lean-to on the back of my polebarn and I raised 48 meat chickens to slaughter and fill the freezer, as well as 4 hens that we're keeping year round for eggs. I'm an avid hunter so I normally have a deer or two in the freezer every fall and going to partner with a co-worker this coming spring to start raising hogs to butcher. My wife's family owns a dairy farm and are able to keep us supplied with beef in the freezer, so in my world of meats the only thing I'm really missing is fish. I usually do a lot of fishing in the summer time, but don't keep enough fish in the freezer to not have to buy fish at the grocery store (fishing is one of the hobbies that gets sacrificed for other hobbies, namely scuba diving through the summer), so the wife mentioned if I could raise fish to eat we'd be pretty well set for food once we had the greenhouse up and running, so here I am looking in to aquaponics as a way to utilize my greenhouse and raise edible fish.

I've been keeping ornamental fish in aquariums for several years so I at least don't have to learn that portion, I just need to figure out how to combine them with the greenhouse and growing veggies. I have done a few freshwater planted aquariums, so the aquaponics concept is pretty easy for me to understand I think... most of what I need help with is designing the system to get the most benefits and being able to keep this going year round in the frigid Michigan winters...

I hope to learn a lot from you all and be able to tweak my greenhouse design based on your feedback to get the most bang for my buck. I've already sketched out plans for my greenhouse in 3D to utilize a bunch of repurposed windows / sliding glass doors that my dad has been saving for me for the last year or so, so that should save me a lot since I already have somewhere around 50-60 windows and 4 sliding glass door panes.

I'll post the current greenhouse plans shortly and look forward to all the help you can provide!

Welcome to the forum - look forward to seeing your plans

Thanks for the welcome. Looks like I can post more now so here are some pictures of what I've sketched up so far...

Here is an iso with the plywood walls removed. Overall building size is 16ftx16ft


I am planning on burying some PVC about 4ft underground, the PVC will run up near the peak of the building on one side where it will have a blower fan attached to it to pull warm air from the peak and circulate it underground where the PVC will be covered with a mixture of pea stone / clay / water which will absorb the heat from the air blowing through the PVC underground to help heat the greenhouse at night


a little closer iso, here the walls are back on. I am planning on having a double 30 gallon metal trash can setup for a backup heat source on cold nights I can burn paper bricks / wood if I need to to help heat the greenhouse for the coldest winter nights (this will be installed later when I have a chance to see how cold the greenhouse gets at night if I need to have it or not.


here is a side profile of the north/south walls - I have enough windows saved up that my dad has saved for me when he replaces windows for people that I was able to make both sides the same, but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't get rid of the north windows - I thought I needed to let light in during the summer when the sun is further north, but I'm seeing other peoples designs that have the north half of their greenhouses enclosed so light doesn't get in and can provide some shade in the summer time. (Maybe I should leave the windows and just not put glass in the roof on the north side?)


this is the east/west profile, I am going to change this to add more windows because when I originally sketched this up I sketched it for what windows I had, since then I've brought about 14-15 more windows home.


The roof design isn't complete yet because I haven't entirely decided what I'm going to do yet. I am planning on using sliding glass doors for my roof, I currently have 4 panes which would be enough for half of the roof (south half), and was planning on picking up more for the north half, but will wait to see feedback if people here think I should or not?

I haven't sketched anything up for the aquaponics system yet because that is a new idea for me. I am now questioning if I should remove the windows on the north end and then I can line the north wall with black water bins (would plastic or metal barrels be better for heat gain/retention in the winter? The plastic would last longer, but I have access to both so could use the metal if they would heat better?) and put the aquaponic / fish tanks next to them. My wife isn't sold on aquaponics yet, so at least half of the greenhouse will be hanging eavestrough to grow plants in to transplant into the garden once it warms up enough, until she can see the aquaponics system running to get on board with just running them (and not needing to have a garden outside at that point).

I am not really planning on having more vents at the peak of the greenhouse, but figured with my windows I should be able to place fans in the windows to help move air in the summer which should help with humidity issues. I am planning on having a small solar power panel to be able to power the little bit of electronics that we will run in the greenhouse. We have a small solar panel system at my cabin in TN for power and it works well so I'm planning on the same small system (from harbor freight) for the greenhouse. I also have a solar heat system on my house that works well to supplement heat just by warming air that gets circulated through the house, so if I need additional heat in the winter I will build another one of these smaller systems that will mount on the south wall beneath the windows.

I'm still in the early planning stages, so I look forward to any advice you can give me for downfalls in my plans.

I didn't mention the doors... I brought home a free 36" door so only need to pick up one more, the wife requested that there be a door on both sides to make it easier when moving things in/out to garden etc.

also, here is a layout of my property and where I plan to put the greenhouse at. There are a couple of small (10-12ft) cedar trees just north of where the greenhouse will be, but otherwise no trees nearby. My field I am planting a lot of trees to fill it in to make it better for deer hunting. I planted about 120 trees (white pines, norway spruce, oak, sugar and red maples, shagbark hickory) last year and planning on planting another 200 norway spruces this year. When we bought the house the farmer who owned the property to the north and south of us was planting half of our property and what he was paying for land rent just wasn't worth it to me so we took it back and I'm trying to plant fast growing trees to turn it to woods over the next several years...

The drain field does run out in the back yard so I have to keep the greenhouse hugged up tight to the cedars on the north edge of the yard.

I think having the north side roof partially covered makes sense to me, otherwise a tight greenhouse like this will overheat.

I also think having the black barrels along the north wall makes sense unless you need the north window for looks or ventilation. The AP water also helps moderate the temps in the greenhouse. You might want to look at Jasons build for ideas, he's in West Virginia -
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=21897&start=0

Notice that he did a header for the subterranean heating. This might give a more even distribution of heat than the one long pipe looping back and forth.

There are several other really good passive solar builds on BYAP.

Another source of information is the builditsolar.com website.

This is a current project on another thread here - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=24884

I'm already following marks thread, thanks for the link to novas that is quite impressive.... I'm rethinking my design already after reading through some of the link mark had posted on his thread, I would really like to make it self sufficient so I'm not increasing my electric or heat bills so thinking I need to redesign to be able to fit everything... Who knew there was so much to go in to designing a greenhouse... I guess just because I'm in Michigan looking for a winter greenhouse makes it harder... Looking like my cost is going up, but thinking I need to be able to store 21+ 55 gal barrels to heat it in the winter months, in order to do that and still have a decent amount of space to grow stuff I'm thinking it has to get bigger...

I've got some preliminary thoughts sketched out where I will be able to fit 3 grow beds approximately 4x8ft with an IBC under each one to allow me to keep a couple different fish tanks for different fish or breeding tanks etc.

I'm still in the process of drawing up my design changes, one thing I was wondering, I am thinking about using white vinyl siding on the areas of solid wall in order to make it somewhat match my house. I will put plywood then wrap and insulate the outside before vinyl siding goes on. Is there a downside to using white vinyl? I could also get away with white ribbed metal since that would match my chicken coop and my pole barn is red ribbed vinyl with white trim, I know white is going to reflect more light, but is there going to be a difference pro or con for the metal vs. vinyl?

I should note the roof is going to be white ribbed metal, or on the south side with my windows I might use clear ribbed plastic on the areas the don't have Windows... I haven't fully figured out that plan yet either...

Welcome! Sounds like you have the skills, materials, and space to do a great build r85.
Looking forward to following your progress. I love greenhouse threads.
Very jealous of your meat supplies too.

I'm making progress on redrawing the GH with the changes incorporated based on markb's suggestions for the passive solar setup. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to fit everything I wanted to do in to it and thought I was going to have to go a lot bigger to have enough space, but after thinking about it a bit I settled on having the space to place 4 IBC's with a good 2ft or so walkway around all sides of them and have space for 21 water barrels for my solar batteries, this allows me to stay with my 16x16ft footprint that I wanted to have.

I want at least two, but maybe 3 fish tanks (or 4... I'm kind of a fish tank collector... it's really an addiction that I struggle with...) so I can separate different types of fish / different sizes of the same type (I might be able to accomplish this with setting up actual aquariums for small fish until they grow big enough to not get eaten towards the back near the batteries/water storage though so only time will tell on that and how much grief I catch from the wife... I still haven't even convinced her on doing AP, so might start out with just one AP set up to show her the difference between it and just dirt first then add the others later if I can convince her we'll get better growth and year round production).

anyways, here is what I have sketched up so far... still working on it but it's getting closer... now I'll have the door glass on the correct angle for the angle of the sun at winter solstice plus some of the smaller windows in the upper angled part, then the back roof will just be covered with plywood / insulation / metal roofing... for my air movement I have windows as low as possible on both east and west walls but I am planning on making the top window on both sides be able to be tilted in/out as well to help with ventilation in the summer. I'm not sure how it will work yet, but I'm thinking I'll just build a wood frame around the window and then hinge the wood frame and hope that I can seal it up good enough for winters.

maybe I'll be able to finish sketching it up this weekend to be able to put my parts list together then I can start pricing out materials.

I think it needs to be longer on the side facing the sun . The recommended length to width ratio for solar greenhouses is a minimum of 2 to 1 (somewhere between 2 to 1 and 3 to 1 is what I've seen). You don't have to do it this way but if you can pull it off, every little bit helps in a climate as cold as your's.

The reason for this is to optimize the solar gain and storage from the side facing the sun. Since the back is covered and the sides are relatively short it also minimizes heat loss area in relation to the heat gain area.

I'd love to go larger, I just don't know if I can afford to =/ I have the space for it just trying to keep the cost low.

I think for what I'm trying to do the 16ft depth N-S is about right (as far as fitting everything in), unless I went wider but not as deep... I guess I could still go for the same square footage so I could still fit the 4 IBC's in it, just put them all in one row instead of in two rows. The problem with going wider though is trying to lift the beam up for the ceiling is going to be tough... when I was thinking I would do just a square straight wall building I was just going to build trusses but getting to an odd shaped building I figured it would be best to use a beam and just run rafters up to it. I'm already going to have to call in a lot of favors to get a few guys to come help me get the beam up in to place as is (or bring an aerial fire truck home from work and use the hydraulic aerial ladder to life it in to place!) =)

I guess I can play around with something more like 12x24 and see if I have the windows to do it... I would need to pick up a couple more sliding glass door panes for the south wall.

On a positive note... I went to dinner with some of my scuba diving buddies tonight and was talking to one of my buddies who runs a commercial greenhouse for a living and was telling him about my plans to build a hobby greenhouse in the back yard and that I was going to try aquaponics and explaining it all to him and mentioned using IBC totes for the fish tanks / grow beds and he asked if I needed any IBC totes, said he has some sitting around not being used at his work... so I told him I would like 4 of them which he thinks he has and said that he would check tomorrow and let me know... he said they need to keep at least 1 of them there in case they need to use it but the others he could get rid of, so I might have some free IBC's headed my way which should save me about $200 (or more).

scotty, before I get too deep in to redrawing everything again, I thought that really the heat capacity was an object of the amount of glazing/glass in the greenhouse...? This was from the website that markb had sent me...



so based on that I had figured with my 16x16 setup I'd probably be OK with 21 barrels, but for an extra layer of security blanket I was still thinking I'd bury the PVC under gravel floor as noted in the original plans to help draw warm air from the peak and move it underground to store for night heat.

I'm getting a little carried away when I start looking at 12x24 it was actually about 32sq ft more space than my 16x16 plans, but I don't like the floor layout of it having 4 IBC's in a row (still keeping about 24 inches walkway on all sides of the IBC's so it's easy to work around them)... so then I thought "well if I'm going 12x24 why not go 12x30 instead?" So then I can fit 5 IBC's in there... then I still don't like it so I thought "well how about 14x30?" and it just spirals out of control... before I know it this "hobby greenhouse" is going to be larger than my polebarn (24x32 -- maybe I should just rework the polebarn and turn it in to a greenhouse, then I could build a bigger pole barn on the other side of the property... seems how I'm not happy with the 24x32 pole barn size!).