Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello,

I used to keep fish, decades in the past. I once built furniture and aquariums. I am trained as an engineer.

I just got started in Aquaponics. I set up a 75 gallon aquarium in my classroom (I am a teacher) and experimented with a 7 gallon cement mixing tray as an Aquaponics style filter. I filled it with expanded clay pebbles and spathiphyllum (peace lilies.) I used a bell siphon to make it ebb and flow.

I started with 24 small goldfish and still have 23 of them. (Nibbles was adopted by one of my students. I think I will take a seafood menu to the side of the tank next school year to prevent this kind of naming.) No fish were lost cycling the tank.

I learned that 1 peace lily in a quart sized pot from Lowe's can be dropped directly into the grow bed and will soften the cycling for 5 small goldfish if they are fed one small meal (about 1 flake per fish) once a day. Neither ammonia nor nitrite went over 5 PPM.

My students are working on projects that include programmable lighting, power failure backups, heater failure detection, etc.

My next experiement (next school year) will be the same tank but with a pair of 26 gallon trays and some expanded shale.

I want to design a system that takes an aquarium on the bottom and two 26 gallon grow beds that looks like a nice piece of furniture. I see www.groveLabs.io, but their system is too fancy, too small, and costs too much.

Howdy from another Texan! Welcome to the board!

Good ol Texan here as well south texas like way south gathering supplies and planning stage here

Hello, Texans! I've posted a lot of details and photos over on my own thread (Shelgeyr's Systems) (http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=12285&start=195#p554183) but the short & sweet of it is that Summer is here, and the guys cleaning up after the Byron Nelson golf tournament are giving away TONS of free high-quality shade cloth, just like they did last year, along with a bunch of other stuff.

Again, this is FREE material. First come, first served. Grab as little or as much as you want.

If you're interested, contact Manny Amador at 714-589-5526. I just met him this afternoon - very nice and helpful guy!

Recycledelectrons,

Welcome from another Texan! I'm down in "tha' sticks" by Clifton!

what part of south texas. im on the border. looking for others in my area to share ideas with.