Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The plan was to flip this on today and start planting stuff in rafts but its raining, thundering and lightening outside right now so i guess i will just start my system thread.

I still have the 700 gallon ferrocement tank and grow bed. The ferro pieces are just getting looped into this big system so i can use on pump to move water around.


Two 1250 gallon fish tanks (white) one 1250 gallon sump tank (black), barrels are rff -> mesh -> mbbr




four DWC beds there is a double 4footx20foot bed with a shade cloth. and two 2footx20foot beds with trellises



The two 4 foot wide beds with shade cloth can do greens, herbs and other small plants in a conveyor belt style. New rafts go in one side, and harvest out the other side. I can shade cloth in summer and greenhouse plastic in winter.

The 2 two foot beds x 20foot each have a 10 foot conduit trellis for training up vining crops vertical like tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, etc.




This is the best angle i could find to show the whole system, closest is the double beds, then the trellis beds and at the back of the property is the fish tanks.





Theres lots left to do, but heres the start!

Brian, what are you going to do for wind protection of tomatoes etc on those high trellises? One storm could easily take the lot of them out. One of the reasons I put netting over the ends of my GH was to slow the wind down to minimise damage to tall plants.

It would be easy to stiffen them up by connecting them.

Yes, connecting them between beds would help, but more would be needed in a big blow I think.

Are they galvanised steel? If so, I'd be concerned about water that has been in contact with them getting into your system water, increasing Zinc levels over time.

Thank you for your input and suggestions,

Yes, its electrical conduit and it is galvanized steel, commonly used as trellising for soil gardening. I do not doubt that over time some zinc will drip into the system, but it doesnt come in direct contact with the water and IMHO, its such a small amount to the size of the system. As of right now, i dont consider it a problem ,as with all things i can change my mind after i gain more experience. It also occurs to me that trace amounts of zinc would be beneficial as opposed to toxic thought i am too ignorant in chemistry to know if the zinc drips would be plant soluable.


As for the high winds. I had not considered this. I will keep this in mind as i string up the plants. My initial feelings is that this is a suburban home and between houses, trees, fences and the density of plants that plants will not be very exposed to high winds... its interesting, the plants would probably only be 8-10' high for 2 or 3 months at most.. i will definitely report how this works (or doesnt work). for now, i dont plan to make any changes but like i say, once i get the plants strung up i reserve the right to change my mind. If i lose a crop or part of a crop i wont stress too much. The prozac is good stuff.

thanks,
brian

after taking a week off to get to where i could post the last pictures, i really thought i could get this online between doing odds and ends after work and spending this weekend. But alas, i ended up working friday and satruday nights and sleeping most of the day sat and sunday recovering so i am still not online.



However, i did get the aeration installed on the grow beds and added the rafts... i *would* be ready to start planting now but i havent started any seedlings yet and i still need to redo the plumbing around the fish tanks and filteration. its not working as well as i would like right now and i think i can improve it a lot.



But i will stop pretending like people read the text and just let you look at the new pictures, see attached



word,
brian

I will work to get some new pictures up. I have been working hard to get everything running. I put a bunch of pepper starts in the rafts and i bought a handful of other plants and put them in the rafts but i started a bunch of seedlings (tomatoes, eggplants, kales, lettuces, cucumbers) that should have true leaves and be ready to put in the rafts by the end of the week.

Also i have been pinning up shade cloth on all of the fish tanks and filters to try to keep the water temps as low as possible as it starts to heat up this summer. I am really close to being "done" with the aquaponic system. if all goes well it will be in full swing by the end of next weekend. Then i can focus more on the soil grow beds.

Its my intention to do a walkaround video that shows how the system is put together but between getting the footage i want, editing it , narrating and all that, its just lower priority from finishing getting everything setup and planted. So i will loop around in a month or so and do that but for now.. here's a slideshow tour

Everything starts at the 1250 gallon black sump tank. There is 1 submersible waterfall pump iirc its 3600 gph max.

The one pump pumps water to 4 places... each of the two 1250 gallon (white) fish tanks, the old 700 gallon ferrocement system (from my other thread) and the dwc beds. All the water drains its way back to the sump.

There is two ecoplus 7 air pumps. One is responsible for pumpng air to the two 1250 gallon fish tanks and the other pumps air into the two MBBR filters and two mineralization tanks

ecoplus7 #1-
4x .75 cfm air diffuser fish tank 1250 #1
4x .75 cfm air diffuser fish tank 1250 #1


ecoplus7 #2-
2x .75 cfm air diffusers MBBR #1
2x .75 cfm air diffusers MBBR #2
2x .75 cfm air diffusers Mineralization tank #1
2x .75 cfm air diffusers Mineralization tank #2

When water is pumped to each of the two 1250 gallon white fish tanks. The flow is

MBBR -> fish tank -> RFF -> mesh filter -> sump. The water is pulled through these stages by gravity


All of these pictures are of the same MBBR. Its an IBC With two .75 cfm air diffusers. The MBBR media is about 10 cubic feet of the allied aqua mmbr media. The bacteria prefer the dark so i added a double layer of shade cloth to make them feel more at home.

The water gravity feeds from each MBBR into each fish tank. This fish tank has about 100 channel catfish. Some are wandering around the top but most prefer to stick to the bottom unless theres food. The other fish tank has about 200 bluegill and red eared sunfish.

I have setup two "offline mineralization tanks". I clean the rff and the mesh filter with a sump pump and pump the solids into the left IBC. I am still researching mineralization tanks retention and chemistry but right now i am planning to discharge between 50-100 gallons of water from the filters when i clean them (once a week) and the average retention time flowing from one ibc to the other should be about a month. The water overflows from the second ibc and drains back into the sump. (which is why the ibcs needs to be on cinder blocks to have appropriate height to use gravity.

And like the mbbr's i covered the mineralization tanks with double layer shade cloth.

And now i am working to get seedlings started and fill up the rafts.

I put some peppers and cucumbers and tomatoes in the rafts a little over a week ago. They seem to kind of just sit there droopy for 4 or 5 days (presumably transplant shock) then they have really started to come on. The peppers specifically were root bound and yellow. But you can see the new growth popping on in dark green. They keep trying o push out blooms but i have been pinching them off i want the plants to put their energy into getting bigger right now.

Looking forward to the video tour Brian .