For many years I had been getting bugged to have some kind of veggie patch. While I knew it would be a good idea. I also knew I would be the one looking after it and they can be a bit of hard work. Anyone that knows me, knows that hard work and me just don't go in the same sentence. So needless to say we had no Veggie garden, Yet ! We had done the sums and worked out that there was a considerable saving to be hard, if we could get enough, and the water costs and others associated didn't blow out. So I had a bit of a criteria that was needed. 1. It had to be very easy with little labour involved. 2. Needed to use very little water. WA very hot and dry, water restrictions etc... 3. Supply abundance of produce 4. Relatively cheap to make 5. Compact and fit down the side of the house 6. Be fun ? Looking at the traditional Garden beds, I could tell these were not going to work. For the size we had, it wasn't going to provide enough. The cost to maintain with water was a big one as well. So I scratched that off the list. The new style of elevated beds with hay etc... Looked promising. This could have been pretty viable. Just wasn't convinced of the little work part yet ! From here I found Aquaponics. I had seen it mentioned here and there but never really took a great deal of notice. Except this time I did. I saw something that made it affordable. Most setups would cost over $1,000 for something that was large enough. This was way too much for me. I saw people using IBC's (Intermediate Bulk Container) and getting a Grow Bed (GB) and a water tank/Fish Tank (WT or FT) from them. I knew a place I could get some pretty cheap. So this was it, I was going to do Aquaponics Yah for Aus !!! First thing is check what is in your IBC. Use the MSDS to check what it is and how bad. You can make your own decisions on what to use. Or you can buy cleaned ones used from food grade products. There is a great video on how to cut the IBC and what fittings are needed. If you are in OHS please just turn a blind eye OMG... Bit funny but plenty of information. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYFM7J_TpTU So I had cleaned thoroughly, cut my IBC's and was on my way. Expanded clay was my choice with a little spongelite to take up any nasties in the water. Using a 20mm pipe with holes to deliver the water around the GB it is then gravity fed back into the FT. It is filtered using an under rock bed filter around the base, drawing in water and nutrients through the rocks. In the FT I have Silver Perch and Yabbies. This is in tank 1. So all of their poo goes into the filter up to the GB and feeds the plants. The plants clean the water and send it back clean and the cycle continues. I am planning on running two GB and FT but wanted to get one up and running first, iron out the mistakes and then setup the second unit. I also plan on getting a bulk tank for general water storage and top up. All up it has cost about $500 including a new Pump, Grow medium (that was a bit expensive) Fish and Yabbies. It has been running for just under a week. Touch wood everything seems, to be going well. I did loose a couple of yabbies, but did expect a couple of losses. Hopefully it goes ok from here. Also the plants went into the beds on a really stinking hot day. My water level wasn't right and you can see a very sad cucumber LOL, which will be replaced. The concept will be to supply a good mix of vegies and some fruits. With also the longer term a few fish here and there. Plus the occasional Yabbie as a treat. General overview of the tank, you can see junk and System 2 in teh background. [imgz=http://forums.silverstackers.com/uploads/181_img_4654ss.jpg][/imgz] A couple of plants, also the watering system. I have used some filters just to help clean the water and reduce the noise. [imgz=http://forums.silverstackers.com/uploads/181_img_4655ss.jpg][/imgz] The FT [imgz=http://forums.silverstackers.com/uploads/181_img_4657ss.jpg][/imgz] So there you go, if anyone is also doing a system post it up, share some of the successes. If there is enough interest I will update as I go along. Hope it may be of interest for some.
+1. Well done! Have been interested in this since stuff since I saw an aquaculture setup on Doomsday Preppers.
+1. Awesome! If we're not talking about precious metals, this is the sort of thing I want to see more of on SS. Kudos and well done, make sure you keep us updated!
I got my IBC for $65 from eBay but there was no lid to it so it is no use as a growbed! We are turning it into more rainwater storage instead! Are you on any of the forums? Backyard Aquaponics http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/ would be closest to you but Practical Aquaponics http://www.aquaponics.net.au/ is also good. Loads of great advice on them. I was going to go with the IBC set up until I visited Murray Hallam's farm, I got a lot of good ideas from seeing different experimental set-ups! Now I am looking at setting up a gravel growbed as the main solids filter and then deep water culture for the rest, looking at 3,000 litre fish tank and probably 10,000 litres of growbeds. I have permission to start once I finish the wood fired pizza oven!
Hey cool, glad a bit of interest thanks The good thing about Aquaponics is it is totally scale able. If you have a balcony or acres it doesn't matter. When I went to one of the local shops, I saw them using a couple of those blue 200lt barrels, chopped up. Two grow beds and fish. This would be great to have a couple of these in a tight backyard or balcony. You could grow staple veggies quite easily. Lettuce, Capsicum, Cucumber, Peas etc... The next size would be what I am doing, an intermediate size. This should when up, well and truly maintain my family in Veg/Fruit bar a few items. Some people use their old pools. One of the comments that stuck, was for every litre of FT you can have a GB. So if you have 700ltr FT you can have 700ltr's of GB. Fish you can stock 10litres per 1 was a ratio mentioned. I am well under this as I don't have enough GB to filter out the waste. With the second GB I can add more fish. One of my issues is the Yabbies fighting. I have some that are egg blown. So I am building an isolator as I want to create new stock and not have to buy them. Also I think it pays to just leave males in one tank. Put a couple as a breeding pair and go from there. I will know in a few weeks I suppose. I will show the breeding box when finished.
Yeah cool, I know those pages and certainly went through a lot of them. 3000lt bit bigger than I can handle good job. 10,000ltr grow bed is commercial stuff. Certainly looks like a lot of fun up at the Lizard household soon Murray seems like a cool guy, you can see his passion. Is he like that in person ?
Nothing exotic yet LOL Could be used for anything if the weather was ok for the plant. Using Greenhouses seems to produce fantastic results. So that would open up many varieties.
They usually recommend a 2:1 growbed:fish tank for filtration purposes but then they say that is misleading and it is all down to stocking density! You need to be able to filter the waste so generally the more filtration you have the more fish you can keep but the higher the fish density the less time you have to react when anything goes wrong, and reading the forums...things are always going wrong! Less stocking density means that if your pump breaks down the fish are still alive when you get back from work. I am going for a 3:1 growbed:fishtank with low density, should give me plenty of time to react should the pH or temp fluctuate too much.
Murray was a very friendly chap full of anecdotes and his set ups are well worth a look around too. I have his videos and one of the books. I got the Backyard Aquaponics magazine but it wasn't really worth the cover price. For those put off by looking after fish you can always try the 'wicking beds'! Murray had a few and I have set some up at home now, they take up less space than aquaponics, still conserve water and there are no moving parts!
I am doing a larger scale system of what you have there (4 IBC's and suitable grow beds), Solar powered pump etc will put it up as I build it
Awesome, Solar is the next step for me. I feel backup is critical. As JL mentioned with too many you can have problems if something goes wrong. I also need to add a backup air pump. I saw these ones in action the looked pretty good. http://backyardaquaponicsshop.com/shop/acdc-air-pump/ What Fish are you looking at ? and perhaps why ? look forward to seeing the project.
My main power will be mains with a back up battery supply in case of a power cut. The number of panels required to run an aquaponics system through the cloudy/rainy season would make it unsuitable, have you seen the BigelowBrook farm aquaponics videos? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rn6YtCC670 they went solar but they have bad winter sunlight so they need more panels than I have for my house. I am going to add solar for extra aeration though. The way I see it, more sun = hotter water = more requirement for oxygen to be added. Might as well get the sun to provide the extra energy. Solar means batteries as you still need to run the pumps at night, so you need chargers and monitors and a place to house them all. If there was an off the shelf product then I would get it but it seems a lot of tinkering in a field I know nothing of!
I am doing the exact opposite, as I said I am doing solar, > battery then to mains backup. As for fish, I am going with a mix, Sleepy cod for some, these are to sell as each fish is worth around 100$ when fully grown (2 years). THe others will be spread amongst Talapia, Bream and Barramundi all of which have be done by another local, that means I will just need to jump on the boat for flatty, snapper, whiting, squid and flake, strap on the Scuba tanks and I can hit the scallop fields and chase the crays, could get abalone as well but I am not a fan of it. Take out the bang sticks to get quail, duck, deer, pigs, goat etc then its just a matter of getting all the veges to grow a little better. This year is the 5th year for most of the fruit trees and the results are really starting to show, we will in the next few years be getting 100KG+ of most fruit and given the 4 bee hives anything between 120KG and 200KG of honey NOTE: These figures are averages
From what I can gather most fish are put in as it starts to get hotter and harvested when the temps start to drop so you don't even get a whole year. In order to over winter them you need to provide warmer water by heating. I want Barramundi but water temps below 22C are bad for them so you have to heat the water in the winter months, no idea how much that is going to cost...
This is the sort of topic that is perfect for the "Preparedness and Sustainable Living" forum (which everyone can access for the low, low price of 1oz silver ) So far DanDee's got the highest rating thread of nearly any on the whole site.
How many Cod could you get in your tank, how big do they get ? That is a good result on the Fruit and Honey. Looks like you are really getting the sustainable part looking good. Plus a nice income also if needed here and there.
Yup I got that well and truly, initial reaction was shock when I first started doing it. Now she is a little more interested. Even fed the fish the other day Once we start having to go to the shops less I am sure she will be more appreciative, perhaps ?
