The system is doing great. Been running for 85+ days now. My greens look very green and are getting bigger. Still no carrot mass under the medium. Oh well. I have some grape tomato seeds germinating and plan to plant those girls soon. I’m also going to look into getting some spinach because I’ve read that it grows well in a system that floods as often as mine.  

     My goldfish are doing great and they are slowly growing. There are eight left. It has been that way for the…

Hundley Farms will be doing business as Veggies, Herbs, and Fish....a website will be up shortly.  The attached pictures show the greenhouse frame and the future roadside stand....48 tons of sand have been delivered for the greenhouse floor base....16 more tons and gravel to be delivered next week.  The 50 tons of pea gravel will be for the final floor.  The well and electric should be in within the next couple of months and full operations are planned to start in July 2011. 

Will…

My plan has changed a few times, but this is my current plan for building my backyard aquaponics system.  My drawing is pretty crude and not to scale, I know, but it's the best software I have available to make the drawing.  The grow beds will be two 100 gallon Rubbermaid stock tanks and the fish tank is a 30 inch tall x 4 feet wide 200 gallon HDPE fish tank. I've searched…

It has been a few…

The system seems to be getting stable. I am currently at 8 fish and some underdeveloped carrots. The roots of my carrots are not forming into a tuber.  I have Italian grape tomato seeds en route and hope to have better luck with above ground fruit. I am able to see that the carrot greens are a nice green color with only traces of light green on a few leaves.  I have confidence that the plant food is available in abundance for tomatoes. 

I…

I really had a struggle with figuring out what size the sump needed to be to handle the water load from my two grow beds.  As LUCK would have it, the system as built works perfectly. With the media in the growbeds the amount of water draining back to the sump tank is about 3 or 4 inches under the rim.  Perfectly sized. To that end, let me share my bed sizes and capacities...

Note: 0.00432900433 is the cubic inch to gallon conversion factor

Fish Tank

IBC…

I started researching AP about 3 years ago and decided that I'd try to make a system my self.  After much trial and error, I've managed to place all the pieces together.  I decided to build the system in a greenhouse.  The harbor freight 10x12 greenhouse was an affordable choice.  I am moderately satisfied with it.  I don't think that the quality of it is up to par, however the price isn't too bad.  If money were no object (I wish!) I'd have built the greenhouse from scratch, however when I…

The Florida Wildlife Commission recently provided me a list of commercial fish hatcheries. I thought I'd share the link below for any of my fellow Florida aquaponic enthusiasts that are interested:

http://myfwc.com/media/131389/Freshwater_FishStockingList.pdf

Unfortunately, most of them do not have websites for additional research. I guess we'll have to resort to the old stand-by --…

I've discovered that instead of the 300 gallon fish tank I was planning for my aquaponics system (stocked with catfish), my wife is more comfortable with a 150-170 gallon tank due to the large footprint required for the larger tank. So I've been researching fish for my smaller tank. I want to maximize fish for the space.  I've received many suggestions for bluegill, so I did a little research via Google. Surprise, surprise....bluegill are being researched as a lower cost alternative to…

All is well in my system. I have only had 2 fish die since my last post. I am not sure as to why, but it is promising. I had to relocate my system to another room because the room it was in needed to be used for storage space. I couldn't fathom showing people my system in a room full of other things. I have begun to notice the lack of growth with my carrots and onions. The greens of the plants are nicely colored but have lost their turgidity and seem to not be producing a larger root. I…

I'm looking at getting my feet wet with aquaponics, have started gathering water tanks,(12' dia x 54", open top), looking at several options for grow beds, already have greenhouse frames,( 1-30' x 96', 1- 44' x 144'), and abundance of spring water. I want to learn the art of aquaponics before diving into commerical production. I was in live production agriculture, and understand mechanical/ electrical sytems and want to incorporate this into my operation. I plan to be heavier in vegetable…

              Hello,

                    I need someone who has experiance in commercial aquaponics big or small. Please let me know. Joe

Our Aquaponics

Ok all this is a new thing for me all the way around. I am not a writer or a farmer, but I am going to try to make a record of my family’s attempt to grow some of our own food. We have built a green house out of 1 inch pvc pipe and covered it with plastic. The plastic is temporary till I get some cash and buy the clear green house…

The Lyons Farmette - Aquaponics 

These are photos of our first media based aquaponics system. The fish tank is 250 gallon capacity and we have filled it to around 200 gallons. There is approximately 35 square feet of grow space not including the new vertical towers we just added in. This system is about a year old, but we have made many changes in the past few weeks. 

 …

It seems as if the world is really doing its best to self-destruct these days, helped on in leaps and bounds by us clever monkeys.  While trouble brews all over, I am going through my normal morning routine in the greenhouses, hatching plan F (or is it G by now?) to get some community systems off the ground here in my part of the world.  If ever there was a time for things looking bleak though, it is now. The world economy dictates the amount of foreign aid that 1^st world…

It feels good to type this, because one of the biggest parts of goal setting and goal achievement is to write them down.

I've been researching aquaponics via Google searches for more than 3 years, but I have not yet built my first system.  I compost with worms and sell my extras on Craigslist for $17 per half pound and $30 per pound. I grow vegetables in above ground beds. I even have a very simply designed deep water hydroponic grow bed made from an 18 gallon Rough Tote plastic…

Today we sold at our 3rd different farmer's market.  Despite the early morning hours that make you very aware that you are really farming, the markets have been a wonderful experience.  Today's market was in our home town of Brooksville and although it started off slow, soon there was a steady trickle of people strolling by.  Many stop and stare incredulously with quite the perplexed look on their faces at our small aquaponic demo unit.  We built a tiny table top unit with a grow bed…

Andy Warhol said "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." well. it happen to me again.  While watching Food Inc. for the first time on my new Free Movie service on Amazon Prime account.  There it was at 1hour 1 minute into the film. Some old film of New Alchemy Institute visit from Gary Hirshberg from Stoney Field Farms.  I remember that talk under the Mulberry tree.  And there I was in the shoot.  I am one of the two hairy guys in the top right. A nice little Ahaa…