Aquaponics is very interesting hobby for me since it only uses simple and basic strategy. I just started Aquaponics in Cebu,Philippines just this month. I made a customized design applying all the 3 methods. I can not say yet that this will works since it's a 2 weeks old. I will update you guys of the outcome. Here's the picture of my setup.

Hello everyone!  First let me thank everyone for sharing so much information in advance. I don't think I'd have an almost running aquaponic system if it wasn't for the info on this site. So lets get to it, what I have...

30 gallon fish tank. (I know its small, but eventually it will be my nursery tank)

12 gallon grow bed

12 gallons of hydroton cleaned

2 air stones

airpump

305 gph water…

I recently built a simple homemade Aquaponic System, it is flood and drain type, the growing bed "GB" is filled with gravels.GB is connected to the fish tank "FT", the later has a submersing pump on a timer. Water is pumped from the fish tank to the grow bed every half an hour and stays there for half an hour, then by gravity it goes back to FT when the timer goes off. Now I am cycling the system by adding small amount of fish food every day as a source of ammonia to encourage the…

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hello all,

I'm relieved to find an online community to bounce some ideas off of. I have been thinking about aquaponics since I discovered it a year ago on a PBS special. I took notes and started searching for simple design parameters. Such as how many fish will one person eat in a year. I know there is an answer out there but really its subjective to the person. I eat fish maybe every other week so thats maybe 23lbs of fish I'd eat in a year. Anyway, I went out to Olomana Gardens in…

Do  polystyrene grow beds need to float up and down with flood beds or do they stay the same height?

Lessons learnt from the micro-system.  

Initially I had the loop siphon on the side like in the photos - this worked ok but not reliably for me and so moving the outpipe to the bottom of the growbed worked much better.

Because it is so small it fills and drains very quickly - I am not sure if this will be ok or not so I may need to fit a timer to the pump.  The dilemma is that I would ideally like a really small flow of water - but to pump the water high enough I…

The party is over, the house keepers have cleaned all rooms, and new people have taken the rooms we occupied. A new conference is scheduled to take the places where we met.  I sat up the other night after all had quieted down and I couldn't sleepand wrote this but my computer wiped it out. .  The adreneline level was high even if I can't spell it. Now my  levels have quieted down but my feelings are still the same.  We just pulled off a miracle.  We need to stand up and shout MAHALO…

There have been a number of articles milling in my head again.  Being a person of above average curiosity in many directions is not always a good thing when there is an internet connection around, as you tend to spend far too much time scratching around in science and technology articles than updating your taxes or whatever else is pending.

The joy is when you read three or four totally unrelated papers and get that little flash of insight that allows you to draw new…

Namaste & Aloha.

We were humbled that Susanne Friend and Tim Mann of Friendly Aquaponics accepted our humble request to visit our home in Central Florida and Sahib's Aquaponics Research Farm and share some quality time with each other.

Susanne Friend and Tim Mann are a "household name" in the world of Aquaponics. They are the Guru's in the type of Aquaponics they have practiced so far, that being the floating raft system utilizing the Deep Water Culture…

I just posted a short guide on starting your own indoor AP system.  My personal blog is all my AP updates that happen, and at the end of a year I wanted to write a short guide for those wishing to start inside as well, and trying to answer all the questions I had.  I have referenced this site/forums/store many times in the post as you all have been very helpful as a community - and I hope to bring in a few more PNW members.

Please check it out if you have time, as I would love any…

Sorry for the delay, folks!  Life has gotten a little busy.  :-)



On my last post I had harvested a bunch of tomatoes, then blanched, peeled, seeded, and frozen them.  In the weeks since then I've harvested cucumbers and made them into bread and butter pickles (a big hit!), got the cattle trough up onto cinderblocks, and removed the cucumber and tomato plants entirely.  I simply couldn't deal with having cucumber vines all over the ground and hiding all the tomatoes from…

If I am going to put my 1st aquaponics system in the basement so we can start learning over the winter, I am going to have build it out of 2x4 lumber, osb, and some type of liner. Reason: the door leading downstairs to the basement is only 29 inches wide, which rules out using IBC tote system. Thought is 48"x24"x60" fish tank. 24"x24"X60" sump tank, on top of which would be mounted 12"x24"x60" grow bed. Above the grow bed would be florescent grow lights (and I think I'll have the sheriff…

After taking the commercial training at Friendly Aquaponics, I am sold on the idea of organisms which consume settled solids and help with nutrient cycling and reduce filter maintenance. In Friendly's case, Gammarus do the trick and since I'm planning a Friendly-style system with minimal gravel beds, I am searching for Gammarus. Unfortunately, I am in a section of California where Gammarus are not found, so I'm hoping someone out there may have some they can ship or know where they can be…

Part 3: Adding the peripheral structures

Being a bit more distracted than I wanted to be, the final stages of adding towers and NFT has not been completed yet.  Thanks to Google Sketch-up, I can show you where I’m headed though and in this way, I can explain what I am trying to achieve at this point in time.

The core is the nutrient factory, although the media beds are also planted.  The fish tank, sumps and filters all work together to give me the system…

A number of discussions have prompted this thought pattern.  I credit the bulk of this current burst of cranial activity to a comment made by Terri Mikkola (Thanks Terri) regarding the population mix of bacteria responsible for nitrification and those responsible for the mineralisation of solids.  In UVI and Friendly style systems the multi-stage filtration system ensures that there is a separation from the zones where masses of solids accumulate.  In my current mixed system re-vamp, I have…

I came home from work this afternoon totally exhausted.  I have to do all the chores before I can consider lying down.  Dogs to feed, cat to feed, two pot bellied pigs to feed just to name a few things.  I have to run to the neighbors and pick up compost material, some one is coming at 630 pm to get some duckweed Oh and I forgot 19 tanks of fish to feed along with 4 nets of fry to feed.  All pumps have to be checked as well as all water levels, look at the plants and see how they are…

When I first set this unit up, it comprised bites and pieces from a first trial unit that worked very well, but had to be moved.  It covered a larger area than what I had space for at home, thus the initial birth of my “cube quest”.  The system had a 1000 litre IBC and four gravel media beds in the new configuration.  The one media bed got used for all kinds of things – a DWC bed, a guppy fry tank and then back to raft before it got turned into the sand bed.  The other three have always been…

Part 1: Understanding what I am trying to achieve.

In a number of blogs and posts on the mixed design forum I have often made statements regarding why I am pursuing a mixed system as my choice for a compact home unit.  In order to take a break from running out to the unit and trying to make small alterations in the limited time I have available at present, I thought it sound to first review everything I am working through and towards in order to make sure that I achieve the…