A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

My plans for aquaponics..........Please critique and give me feedback. I appreciate your comments and hope to remain very teachable.your comments

I just found out about aquaponics on a website i monitor. I was fascinated. Since i already have a solar headed small greenhouse, (16X24) this sounds like a wonderful idea. My basic plan so far if it will work would be to construct growing beds above my 5- 275 gal plastic tanks (medical grade) put in required solar powered pumps and drains and raise bluegill and vegetables for our own consumption. The greenhouse was just installed in Jan so this is our first season. I intend to grow vegetables in the winter in the greenhouse and the addition of raising fish for food really appeals to me. We live in an uncertain world with ever increasing food prices.

Any help, advice, or comments from you guys would be certainly appreciated.

Dale

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Leo White Bear on July 21, 2011 at 4:03am

Dale-

Aquaponics is a great way to be independent from the risk of growing veggies that no longer have the nutritional value they once had. Being organically grown is just one of the benifits with these types of systems, I would suggest you do a search on aquaponics, aquaculture and even hydroponics, just to learn what others are doing both commercially and as a hobby. Read, search, ask questions even act like you know absolutly nothing about aquaponics. There are some great info sites and groups out there that just love to help people out with their share knowledge, for now you are on a great site to learn. As long as your grow beds do not exceed the gallon capacity of your tanks and you have a good flow of nutrieant rich water to and from them you really can't go too wrong. Observe your plants daily multiple times, learn of the diseases of both plants and "fish" and ask questions. I like to say that there is "no dumb question just the one that wasn't asked". Be well

White Bear

Permalink Reply by Sylvia Bernstein on July 21, 2011 at 8:29am

Hi Dale. You might find these "rules of thumb" helpful - http://aquaponicscommunity.com/page/aquaponic-gardening-rules-of. Also, while it is clearly a great choice for the environment I always get a bit concerned when I hear about greenhouses using solar installing AP systems. You need to make sure that you have power, and backup power, 24/7 to your greenhouse to run the pumps and provide aeration to your fish...it is the only source of oxygen they have. Besides that so far this sounds like a good plan.

Permalink Reply by DALE MORRIS on July 21, 2011 at 9:05am

Thanks Slyvia, I have regular power to my greenhouse, plus will be installing solar backup panels, I am a retired union electrician so I've got that part covered. I just took the water temp in my tanks this morning. It was 94.6 deg> I imagine that is about the hottest it will get because we have been having a heat wave. Everything is turned off in the greenhouse right now with no vent fans or dampers going. So if I put my 70% shade cloth over the greenhouse and set my auto thermostat to turn the fans on I'm sure i can keep the temp to an accaptable high in the summer. Do you know what the high limit is for bluegill?

Thanks
Sylvia Bernstein said:

Hi Dale. You might find these "rules of thumb" helpful - http://aquaponicscommunity.com/page/aquaponic-gardening-rules-of. Also, while it is clearly a great choice for the environment I always get a bit concerned when I hear about greenhouses using solar installing AP systems. You need to make sure that you have power, and backup power, 24/7 to your greenhouse to run the pumps and provide aeration to your fish...it is the only source of oxygen they have. Besides that so far this sounds like a good plan.

Permalink Reply by Brent Shetley on July 22, 2011 at 10:38am

Dale,

my wife and I are interested in how well you do with the bluegill. We have always used catfish, but would love to grow another type of fish. Would love to hear your experiences.

Permalink Reply by DALE MORRIS on July 22, 2011 at 4:01pm

Brent thanks for the info. I see that you are not too far fro me. I would love to actually see an AP in operation. Do you think that might be possible some time?

Dale

Permalink Reply by Brent Shetley on July 25, 2011 at 7:15am

Dale,

My wife and I recently built a new place and sold our house where our AP greenhouse was. My plan is start building a greenhouse in the next two to three months to get a system going again. I do have pictures of our system on this web site to see what our old setup looked like. When we do get the greenhouse going, my wife and I would love for you to come up and look at it. Good luck with your system!

DALE MORRIS said:

Brent thanks for the info. I see that you are not too far fro me. I would love to actually see an AP in operation. Do you think that might be possible some time?

Dale