Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Joel,

I hope so. I have always enjoyed the aquaponics hobby (fish keeping) but the plant growth and producing significant amounts of food that i consume has always been a little out of reach..

but i am hoping -edit- (eventually) -end edit- this can be something of an example of how much food a person can grow in a tiny suburban back yard.

The soil beds have been turned over and are starting to produce as well.


and i have recently brought online a small porch demo ebb and flow system using an acrylic fish tank that i repaired... I really like sitting on the porch in the early evening, after working in the garden, with a beer to cool off while watching the fish hunt for june bugs to fall in

I like that tank, at least while it's clean.

The water temps were creeping into the low 90's. A little over a year ago, a buddy had given me this old pool chiller when he moved to another state. I wasnt sure i would ever use it but i figured, why not give it a try..


I just wired it to a 110V plug and put it inline with the existing 2" pvc delivering water to my ferrocement tank. When i plugged it in i wasnt very sure *if* or *how* it would work.

Now that its online, i see that the water is lifted by the system water pump to the top of the chiller where it is dripped over a large roll of surface area with a high speed fan blowing on it. Then the dripping water collects in the pan at the bottom and a separate sump pump pumps the water up into the fish tank every time the pan fills.

I was surprised by how efficient it is.. Technically the only necessary power consumption is the FAN. If i changed the implementation to where the water drains back into the system instead of needing to be pumped from the pan, i could save more energy. I see the pump in the chiller's pan as a design flaw.. if it breaks down , nothing will stop the system pump from continuing to pump water into the chiller and eventually onto the ground, emptying the fish tanks.

I am planning to add a second catch pan with another sump pump to back up the existing one as a short term fix.. but long term.. (probably over the winter).. i will look into putting the chiller in a different location and omitting the use of the sump pump .

The water temps went down about 4 degrees the first 24 hours. it looks like on 100 degree days the water gets up to around 80 degrees now which is higher than maybe i would like but the plants seem to be doing a lot better at 80 degrees than they were at 90 degrees.

Cool, wait what? So, it is some kind of evaporative cooler? I wonder if there will noticeable water loss? Speaking of crazy cool... that giant transparent cylinder with fish in it, takes the cake!

Thanks brian,

yah an evaporative cooler.. was made for pools.

i havent noticed significant increase in evaporation/transporation but i guess we will see... i am not certain how to compare cause its not like i took great notes of my water usage last year


Also, thanks.. the aquarium was a casualty when my office remodeled and i was like.. "i'll haul this trash off for you"

Ha ha sweet move

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I culled a few catfish from the 1000 gallon tank in the background of the pictures.

I have let the fish load get too high and it was getting difficult to feed them without the oxygen in the tanks dropping and the fish going into distress. I Think there still 70 or 80 catfish left averaging about 4 to 5 lbs. So i will have to keep taking them out every week as the temps and water temps start to increase.

I had some company iover and sent about a lb of fillets home with each person and then i took 7 lbs to my moms yesterday for an extended family fish fry.. i still have 3-4 lbs in my fridge for dinners this week.


good problems i guess.

I remodeled the grow beds some this year and i will post on that sometime soonish.. The plants/vegetables are really coming online like they never have before. Really excited for this year in the garden

wow... I am envious of your tanks now (again)... I think I'm only managing to keep four or five catfish alive in an IBC tank maybe I will have to buy stock in concrete to start pouring a bigger tank =)

Thanks for your feed back, sometimes i wonder if anyone still clicks on old threads anymore


Yah, the next week something happened and my air pumps came unplugged.. since the power was still working the pump alarm didnt notify me and i lost all the fish...

68 catfish ~5lbs each and about 300 bluegill/Red earred sunfish most of them between .75 and 1.4 lbs. so about 600 lbs of fish..

i have been slow to post about it because of the anxiety , i just didnt feel like talking about. (still not ready to talk about it honsetly) but here's some pictures for the story. It shows the scale of how much fish i can/do produce in a small .22 acre suburban lot

They were only dead overnight so i think i could have salvaged the meat if i had the manpower but i didnt.. i hot composted most of the fish in the mulch bed/hugelkuture mound and the bluegill in the yeti and box i gutted and froze whole..

The system is so big and mature, i am not seeing any problems with the vegetables they are showing signs this will be the best season yet..

I went this past weekend and got 200 channelcat fingerlings for the catfish tank and the bluegill tank i put 50 HSB )hybrid striped bass)

I have about 15 feed trained crappie in another tank that made it and thats really important to me. I will continue to try to breed them.. If would rather have all crappie and channel cats, i think thats my main goal.. I will alway experiment with other fish types but i think those are my favorite and will be my core.

Oh grief Brian, I really feel your pain.
It hurts.

Ouch! Sorry to hear about the fish Brian, there were some pretty robust looking bluegills in the tank judging by those pictures. I'm glad to hear the plants are doing well and you still have the feed trained crappies.

Bugger. Thanks for the update albeit sad.

Same, nice to see an old thread updated.
I've been on the look out for an old cooling tower for my system. I'm surprised you need to cool pool water down, here it's all about heating the water for swimming!
Thanks again for the update.

Yah, i am about to build a DIY swamp cooler for my demo system on the porch.. i will post pictures and details once its setup.. i have a couple of other projects i have to finish first.

Here's some walk around pics of what is growing on.. The perennials like blackberries and fruit trees are loaded... I was late on my planting so i am maybe a month behind on tomato and pepper production but it looks like its all about to explode.. The squash and cucumbers are blooming and should come on line later this week.