I transplanted an eggplant today into my gravel bed. It immediately collapsed, folded in half and wilted so that it looked absolutely pitiful.  I chalked that up to an "experiment" and went on about my day.

Within 45 minutes, I went back out into the backyard and to my surprise the eggplant the was completely upright with no signs of wilting. I'm still skeptical, but for now at least the eggplant has come back from the brink.

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…

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…

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…