Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Greetings...another lurker comes out from the shadows. I've been spending far too much time browsing these forums and dreaming of a massive system to build! I just finished my degree at Purdue University, and am currently working on getting various IT certifications. AP is what I've filled my time with since graduation.

The pictures are of my proof of concept, which has hopefully proven to myself and the girlfriend that I won't kill all the tilapia that we plan on ordering. The fish are alive and the plants are green...granted they needed a fan from the start...since they're a bit leggy. This could also be from the 4foot shoplight that is being used for their light source.

more pics

more pics

yay! always good to flush out those lurkers!

Welcome Bochener, looks like a nice little set-up. How big is the next system going to be?

Hopefully, if all goes as planned it will be as big as yours.

Ideally, I'd like to really start AP w/ about 150 tilapia and then grow from there to a few systems that could fill a couple of greenhouses that are 27.0 m² / 289.0 sq.feet.

all a pipedream at this point...but at the moment...it does provide something educational and interesting that I can do with the girlfriend's chirrun.

Hi Bochener welcome to the forum.
Thanks for the pics..

LB

Hey Bochener, nice little system, you've obviously spent some time thinking and planning.

If your plants are getting leggy it may be because your lighting isn't sufficient for good growth. Are you using normal flouro lights or are they grow lights ?

if memory serves... two of the tubes are grow lights and two are just regular old fluorescent lights. All 4 tubes are quite old so that is probably a factor as well. I was looking at metal halide lights...but then realized it'd be far cheaper to figure out how to pipe the glorious fishie water outside from the basement. It will obviously take a bigger tank...and that's probably the route i'm going to take. Most importantly (some would say) I have the permission of the girlfriend to move it outside near our hydroponic tomato's and peppers.

Great adaptation of nft principles there bochener.... and obviously working well

Yeah I haven't seen NFT like that either, looks very solid compared with the normal plastic ones.

Do you have a jet of water onto each plant pot bochener?

Lined wooden troughs by the look of it EB, would suspect a water jet per plant.... nice idea.... nutrient plus aeration all in one delivery mechanism

Yup, when we first started it we had planned on 2-3 small holes per plant pot. Unfortunately the tiny holes got clogged and after only a few hours after turning the pump on the system ground to a halt. We replaced all the cpvc and redrilled one larger hole for each netpot.

So far... so good.

The growth in the NFT has been much faster than with the jalapeno DWC we have. Unfortunately, the girlfriend's kids knocked the air pump out of commission for a day and the plants suffered.

This is one of the many reasons I want to either move our current laughable AP bed outside ... the growth of the great metal halide in the sky is much better than the growth of the old 4foot shop light... or come up with a few new beds for outside.

bochener, i'll give ya a challenge......................

get the fishies and bacterias up to speed and then pipe the water out to the current hydro setup! Man you already got it going!

seconded. If you tell me ya some pimply 18yo i am gunna puke. Thinking outside the square bocce. Love ya work.

Nah...i'm a 25 year old balding bearded duder. see pic of me showing off the "NFT" roots