New fish

[Jan Prinsloo]

Hi Everyone, my name is Jan and this is my first post. I've read Sylvia's book a couple of months ago and I was instantly sold on the system. My dad has been a very successful hobby gardener all his life. I on the other hand was put off by the weeding, watering, daily maintenance. I followed my own dreams and ideas that never really involved gardening.

Boy does things change as we get older....I'm now married and a proud father of a 15 month old son, and we live on a different continent. I started gardening really only 3 years ago. We moved into a "new" rented house and the backyard was a mess. It involved laying a new porch, leveling out the rest of the uneven garden, plant grass and make beds for flowers, dig out old tree stumps etc. I've also started a small 1m3 herb/veg garden and have successfully grown parsley, chives, tomato's, carrots and salad.

Problem is that I can only do that from April to August, since our winters here in Europe are nasty. Needless to say I would like to grow a few herbs and maybe some strawberries all year round. This means I'll have to do this indoors and it seems like aquaponics fits the bill. I have limited space and no basement, so my system will either have to go in the living room (need to still get WAF on this - wife acceptance factor) or upstairs in the attic.

All this aquaponics stuff is still very new to me, but I thought it might be good to idea to start with the "Ikea micro" system from Japan aquaponics, since this fits the space constraints and currently my pocket as well.

So anyone out there that might have this system up and running, please share your thoughts about it. I've bought the plastic containers and stand, but still needs plumbing, water tests, lighting and a couple of other odds and ends. My main concern is plumbing though, on the website (http://www.japan-aquaponics.com/micro-aquaponics-plans.html) they specify using 13mm and 16mm pvc pipe, but I've been searching all over and the 13mm is darn hard to find. Do any of you think I can make do with 16mm pvc pipe instead?

Anyhow, back to planning and searching. Hope to upload photo's as I build and get the system to cycle as well as the produce and goldfish growing.

[Daniel]

Welcome to AP growing!

I have not read the Micro plans from the link above, but my indoor system is a simple constant flooded bed with the water overflow draining directly back down into the fish tank below. It seems this could work for you as well if you end of needing another option to the plumbing for the micro. The pipe size does not matter much for a constant flood bed, but could create issues for water pressure (less pressure in a larger pipe = less height gain) if the pump pipe is too large, and a larger drain pipe could throw off a siphon balance if you are trying to use a bell siphon. Otherwise, I would say customize/adapt to your situation is the name of the game in Aquaponics!

Here's a link to my blog if you want to see details on my indoor system: http://www.whatisaquaponics.co/my-systems/