Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That's a little bit personal

Jay,
Would you consider using baskets of rocks in those slots instead of filling the whole tube with rocks? It'd mean you could take the baskets of rocks out and clean them if it gets clogged. It'd also make the whole tube lighter.

Jay! Very inspirational! I like the small foot print.

yes, i just discovered this thread today, very neat, very nice!

jay, any updates?

-df

My experience with a trial vertical system ..

I would suggest large absorbent rocks.. rather than the pea gravel I was using.

Large scoria chips or large expanded clay balls would be pretty good IMHO for this type of system.

I will do the vertical thing again soon! I reckon it would be amazing for strawbs!

I am imagining a pump on a timer that lifts to a distributor bucket, 15 mins on - one hour off which floods and drains back into the pond. Meanwhile small bore delivery pipes trickle feed by gravity, the pondwater into coarse scoria or large expanded clay beads which are the media located inside the vertical pipes that drain directly into the pond!

The verticasl pipes need a little support, but other than that I see that this will work if absorbent, "chunky" media is used to minimize "fallout" though the growing holes! (That was my major problem last time I tried vertical systems!)

Looking forward to seeing how this idea peforms!

WE'VE GOT BABIES!
Sorry it's been so long since I posted an update. The system is working pretty well so far, and this morning I was surprised and delighted to see a swarm of little babies! I was beginning to think my fish were all males. I hadn't looked closely for a while so they are already over 1 cm long and looking great. It looks like there are about 50 of them.






The adults are also doing well, although I haven't been feeding them as much as they might like so they are perhaps not growing as fast as they could, but they did get stressed at one point so I backed off on the food a bit. Still, they have definitely grown a lot.



The plants have also done very well, except for the spinach which got thin and spindly, perhaps because it's too warm in the sunny window. The upland cress, basil, mint and lettuce all did great and since this picture was taken (June 6) I pulled out all the old lettuce plants (some over 18" long) and planted a new crop. We've harvested a lot of salads and of all the plants, the lettuce and basil have done the best.

Jay, awesome pics!!!
You must be very happy with your new family!
Thanks for the update on things.
C1

Yeah, looking great Jay. Awesome to see your new little fishies.

Great pictures of your fish Jay. You're going to need a bigger window!

Great looking system Jay. I have scanned through your site, and not sure if I saw another tank for the babies. You don't want them to end up as lunch for the larger fish.

Nope, no separate tank for the babies. This is an all-in-one system. Actually the only cannibals in the tank are the babies, not the adults. The babies will eat any newly-hatched ones that they can catch but the adults ignore them. If I get another brood going I might have to put a bluegill in the tank to thin them out a bit. I'm hoping to raise them up to about an inch long, at which point I think I can sell most of them to the local pet shop since the tank certainly can't handle that many adult fish.

You are fortunate. My adults gobble up any thing small that swims by. They especially love tadpoles and small frogs.

You could add an aquarium for your breeders and just keep the tank in the system going for your "table" fish. It looks like to me you can easily get your 1 or 2 fish per week goal without too much trouble.

I didn't read this thread until today, so I am a bit late getting to you. I was wondering if you had thought of using the peat pellets that many of the garden centers offer? They look like they are about the size of a quarter, and about 3/8 ths of an inch thick. They have a little dimple where you put your seeds, and then you could put them into your grow media. (I liked the idea of the paper towel when you first tried it. My dad used to put seeds from tomatoes on paper toweling, allowed them to dry out, and stored them in a clean jar over the winter. In the spring he would just place strips of the towels into his hot bed, cover with a little soil, water and get his tomato plant seedlings.)

Kevin

The babies are doing well in the big tank, and they're definitely growing despite my not providing any food specifically for them. I just feed the adults quite a bit at a time (and infrequently, about once a day if I remember) and enough falls to the lower levels for the babies to eat. As a lazy fishkeeper I'm trying the simplest approach to see how it goes.

We have some of the peat pellets but they expand to about the size of a golf ball when wet. I tried using just part of one but it fell apart. So far the sphagnum moss has worked the best, though it hasn't worked perfectly (some seeds still spoiled without germinating, apparently too wet).

Glad to see this is working for you. It has been soooo long since I have been on but yours was the first of 7965 posts I looked at.