Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi so my girlfriend wanted a farm and I built her one, and found I enjoy it too. We have a 30 gallon fish tank and 26 gallon grow bed with a newly added 2 gallon grow pot. For fish we only plan on using gold fish or eventually Coy. Here is our system would love to know what you think.

Welcome to the forum .

Looks nicely done. I think you're a bit short on nitrogen or the plants got too dry at some point judging by the yellow leaves. The peas and beans have the ability to fix nitrogen which is probably why they aren't showing the affects quite as much as some other plants. I use blood and bone meal sprinkled in the grow bed to provide slow release nutrients when I don't have enough nutrients in the system but basically you need something that doesn't cause the ammonia or nitrites to spike and kill the fish so it needs to be slow release. If you do a search you'll find some discussion on Blood and Bone that might be worth looking at and you'll also find information on amounts if you decide to use it.

Thank you. The plants went a few weeks without the system or any fish at all. My girlfriend got a little ahead of things and germinated the seeds. I'm also not sure on the watering cycle and was thinking we had root rot. How often should the bed drain and fill? My bell siphon works pretty well if my flow isn't too low, should I just leave it on and let it cycle? Also, I only have 7 little gold fish, was thinking I should add some more.

I would drain and fill at least once an hour. Are you using "Timed Flood and Drain" or Continuous Flow with siphons to flood and drain the plant area?

I have a bell siphon but have only been turning the pump on twice a day, I can leave it on and adjust the flow to the minimum and let it run. I'll have to time it to see how many times an hour it runs. On full blast it will fill up the bed in less then 10 minutes.

That's probably not the best but it might work because the media may remain damp enough for the plants and bacteria. More frequent watering would be better. The usual goal is to turn over the volume of the fish tank at least once per hour.

Having it fill the bed in less than 10 minutes is OK (so long as the siphon breaks reliably). I had one setup where the siphons kicked in every 6 minutes 24/7.

If you try to go with continuous flow you could hook up a pvc T off the pipe running to the grow beds. From the T you could run some of the flow back through the fish tank for aeration.

Thank you. When I get off this morning I will see how low I can get the flow and still get the siphon to start, the do some timing.