Hello everybody,

I'm new to this forum and to the whole aquaponics journey, and I'd appreciate some thoughts from you aquaponics pioneers about a little system we've just set up in Bondi NSW, Australia. My partner Bruno and myself are very excited about the concept, we've got a really simple little prototype working, and so before we jump in feet first, I thought I'd ask if you think we're proceeding in the right way. Because a good word here at this stage could save us hours later on – I figure why not benefit from all the experience in these forums?

We've got a 400 - 500 litre tank of food grade plastic full of water, and three gravel beds of about 60L each stacked on milk crates right next to the tank. The water is running smoothly from the tank into the gravel beds, and draining away quite nicely. In the beds we have some small seedlings growing - they aren't in full sunlight though and could probably do with a few more good Bondi rays. We have no fish in the tank - we do have Seasol, a liquid seaweed concentrate in the water though, to help our fledgling plants along. We have ordered some bacteria to breakdown the fish poo and its on its way – isn't amazing what the post will deliver?

I've posted a picture of how the set up looks below, because a picture tells a thousand words. I've also linked to a picture of how developed the plants are – I thought that might help too.

So my first question is about the ratio of grow beds to water. Derekh mentioned in a sticky post the idea of 2:1 ratio of beds to water. Would that mean that we need some more grow beds? Or do we just get less fish?

Here's what we're talking about:

Photo of a simple aquaponics set up

The level of plant development

Thanks for your time,

Lady D

LD, (I dub thee this!)

Its a good starting point!

Yep, all the growbed volume means is that you get less fish.

But it will definatly give you proof of concept!

Looks like you're also running contnuos flow, which is fine for a small setup, but plan for your next bigger one (belive me, this will happen quickly ) to be flood and drain.

Welcome and feel free to attach photos into your posts, just click on the "post reply" and then "add attachment" button and resize your photos to 800x600

Hi LD and welcome to the forum...there is plenty of info spread throughout the forum so enjoy the reading ...keep us in the loop when you start on the "next" AP system

Thanks for the warm welcome! So do you think we could run the system with fish in it as it currently is?

How would I go about calculating how many fish we can get? I read in this great thread here that '1 Kilo fish needs 50 litres bed'. So theoretically with 180L we could have about 3 kilos of fish. Do my calculations make sense?

Also, we don't have a little water oxygenator for the fish yet. With only a few fish, would we really need one?



LD

your return pipe splashing the water back to the tank will ad plenty heaps of O2

I'd probably aim for about 1.5kgs max to begin with . Utimatly a nitrate test kit will be helpful in measuring if your plants are stripping enough nutrients. J

Hi LD, welcome
yes, to all of Steve and Les' comments.
If you are planning to keep the system as is for a while, you might want to look at a more permanent stand for the grow beds. Milk crates are pretty sturdy, but may not stand up too well if an exuberant dog or child happens to run into them.
Have fun

hey LD
Ihave a small system running for some barra that I got more than a year ago. I have a similar size as well 500L and 4 growbeds, three of which are running on flood and drain from a loop siphon.
These are very easy to make and I believe can increase the effeciency of the system by 2.5 times at least.
This I believe is due to contact with every piece of gravel in the bed rather then the smaller amount that continuous flow does.

Any way i have attached pictures for you to have a look at, it is 19mm hose attached to a standard hydropnics outlet and looped and then fiddled with to get the level right for the flood level. and held in place with a zip tie. To get it to auto siphon you just have to make sure the inflow is not too fast.

Hope this helps, Nick

Nice to hear/see things are ticking along sweetly for you Nick.

Have you got a picture of the fitting you used on your tubs?

thanks rupe, it is all going well. here are the pictures of the fittings. They are used in flood and drain beds in hydroponics, so are readily available. Cost between $8 - $20 depending on where you go but should be able to source them for around $10 from good hydro stores. You just drill a hole and screw it in, it has an o ring on the inside for a r

Thought they might be those ones.... thanks

What an interesting development of my original question, thankyou! Auto-siphon huh? Our system isn't a continuous flow system (although it could be!) as we have a pump on a timer. Do that effect any of the advice given?

Can I just say how nice it is to find other people have similar small systems? My partner and I had to laugh at the implicit assumption that once you had a small system, you'd naturally want to upgrade to a bigger one As we do, eventually!

LD

Yeh, well you look at some of the 5000L systems and you think "wow, look at all their fish and all their veggies" and then all of a sudden you start thinking "well there IS that space behind the shed....". It's addictive.

For us veterans its more like "well, there is the SHED"