I did a quick search and I haven't really found any threads on an Aquaponics system.

I'm seriously thinking of making a rather large one to take up my basement. I want to grow my own veggies, etc. all year long. The price of eating healthy i.e. non-gmo and organic is skyrocketing and I don't see the price coming down anytime soon.

I've done a little bit of research into what types of fish and their food requirements, but I was wondering if anyone on here has experience or good sources of info for these systems??

Murray Hallman has a lot of videos posted on YouTube, you can search his name or just Aquaponics and look for those with his name on them. https://www.aquaponicsdesigncourse.com/

Awesome. I'll check them out this weekend. Getting a supply list made out now. I'm going to try it with locally caught Blue Gills.

I've seen a few of his vids already. Never visited the site till now. Not paying $1000 that's for sure.

Hey there fellow nexian!

So I currently work with Aquaponics as sort of a living. I work with a small team that goes around and renovates old dilapidated greenhouses (primarily at schools & park districts) We then set up Hydroponic and Aquaponic systems and teach students and teachers how to run the systems. One school that was considered to be a food desert, where kids were eating cans of frosting for lunch are now growing so much of their own produce (Pok choy, Eggplant, Lettuce, Microgreens) that they are now donating it to churches and poverty zones within its town.

The 'fingers crossed' idea is that over time, we will continue to do what we do and schools will be able to start providing their own produce for its staff and students as well as teach children that you can have a career in farming/food production.

If you have any questions about that whole thing, feel free to ask its pretty righteous and I am getting way too hyped talking about it


Anyway though, I figure it would be better for you to ask me specific questions and I can attempt to answer them to the best of my ability. Maybe at some point if you're interested we can start an official Aquaponics thread. One thing I'll tell you now before anything else.

Despite the questionable 'humanity' of raising tilapia, that is the fish we use. Tilapia are insanely hardy and like any other farm creature can be happy if not mass produced. You never know what can happen. Your fish feeder screws up and dispenses too much food, the heater goes out in your house and the water gets really cold, stuff like that, Tilapia will be absolutely fine through it all. You don't want sensitive fish that will perish if anything goes wrong.

I've never heard of using blue gills (I'll have to look into it) but if its locally available to you and they are hardy fish I would say go for it. In our personal greenhouse we have 3 beds, 2 being run with Tilapia and the other one being ran by gorgeous Koi.

There is a beekeeper on youtube with the channel called "Cody's lab" with more than 100 videos about beekeeping.

His theory was basically after giving a 2 hour lesson about beekeeping he realized he can not teach everything, so he started filming everything he does and explaining it.

Basically my question is where can I find quality information, may it be a blog a forum a youtube channel or a book ?


i want to do this soooo mach xd

I'll keep you in mind Peverly. Right now I'm still researching about BSA, fish density, types of fish food (mainly BSF and duck weed), types of media, etc.

I want to run a flood/drain system with a bell siphon and one specific question I have is, what should my interval be for flooding?? I can't really find any good info on how long it should take to flood your media bed.

Beekeeping is my BANE right now, I know a crap load of beekeepers in the Midwest U.S perhaps I could ask them for a good source of information for you. I can't do myself because I live on a family property and my grandfather is deathly allergic to bees so we can't even risk it. Drives me nuts



Give me... at least a couple days ill get into the greenhouse and snap some photos of our beds, fish, fish food, systems (pumps, timers, medium etc.)

Ebb and Flow / Flood and drain the exact system we use on our three beds. Might give you some ideas. We try to be as cost effective as possible since we build the systems ourselves and don't have a lot of money to begin with.

BSA... is complicated at least for me and while I understand its importance, it NEVER comes up in conversation or practice for us and we grow some awesome produce. Maybe we unintentionally nailed it or its not as "crucial" as one may think. Probably wont be able to help you out too much there. This might be a place where Tilapia play an extended roll because they aren't as sensitive to... just about anything like other fish are.

For growing medium we use Rock wool or Mineral wool to hold the newly sprouted seedling then place that in the bed full of clay pellets. There really isn't a way to say how long you would need to set the pump timer for, as I'm assuming people who are into this use a bunch of different size beds. I can take measurements of our beds, find out the timer and perhaps through a bit of math you can figure out how that would translate to whatever size bed you are thinking about using?

Cheers, I'll check back in a few days with all those pictures. I think that will help more.

Mass picture alert

Maybe did this in a not so efficient way but whatever, I'll kind of just run down the list of what those pics are. First set of pictures are of a Aquaponic system that is powering a hydroponic table. Second set is the bell siphon system.

1. A picture of our Bell siphon without the growing medium. This is used for a de-chlorination system. To answer the question about the timer. There is no timer, the whole thing is ran by gravity and vacuums. When the bed fills up it creates a vacuum that starts draining the water, when the water gets too low it triggers a small air hose that breaks the vacuum and it starts filling up again. Its such a visual thing, at least for me in understanding just how that works but hopefully that shed a little light on that question

2. Our two tilapia tanks each holding about 4 tilapia 80 gallons each I think, don't quote me.

3. Close up of tank you can see air hose for air stones and pvp pipes that are running water back from the hydro table its powering.

4.Blub Blub

5. Water from the two tilapia tanks are being ran through these two nifty chambers one that separates heavy sediment the second basically acts as a microbial screen holding all the beneficial bacteria needed to filter the water before it heads into

6. A... lot of gallons hydro table growing all sorts of goodies. The roots of the veggies soak up all the nutrients from the fish waster, filter and clean the water and get it ready to feed back into the fish tanks. Its something else really. SO COOL!

7. Our 3 Bell siphon systems being run off about 300 gallon tanks custom cut for what was needed space wise. I just found some of these being sold on Facebook today for 100$ a pop so theres some really cheap deals out there. 100$ for one of these is a STEAL. The top portion is just the top to the base flipped upside down. With some 2x4 laying across to hold it up.

8. Sorry for the sideways pictures... this is just another pic of one of the systems. You can see how its set up a bit.

9. The undercarriage

10. Bell siphon, Its very important to get a gravel guard to put around it, thats what the outer ring is, you can also see the small clear air hose sticking out.

11. Close up of the PVC pipe that runs along the boarder in a square providing the semi constant drip irrigation. Also a lovely earthworm

12. Same as the last just different angle.

13. The joint in the PVC edging that connects directly to the pump filtration unit in the bottom of the base tank, with the fishies.

14. Another angle of the support and undercarriage.

15. Our beautiful wall of Nasturtiums, edible flowers which Pro tip, doubles as a VERY efficient pest control option. Completely irradiated our aphid and white fly infestation within one month.

16. Aquaponic Oregano doing fabulous

17. Out of control watercress, you can't even see my hand.

18. Monster Swiss chard leaves that are as big as a persons torso.

19. 2 Foot tall basil bushes, the strongest most potent basil I've ever had. such a strong taste of Anise and mint along with the typical basil spice flavor.

20. A better picture of our growing media after I harvested and you were able to see it

I know that's A lot of information but hey, Now its on the nexus.
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Awesomeness.

Ive been slacking too much lately. One of these weekends I'm going to get my basement cleared and get going on this.

Another quick question. What effect do the worms have?? I'm surprised the worms can survive in the lava rock. I haven't really found any info on it but I've seen worms mentioned.

I just found 325 or 275 Gallon tubs being sold on FB for 100$ a pop which is DIRT cheap. So keep an eye out, there's deals out there for sure.



I only remember putting one worm in one of the beds, So unless that just happens to be the 4 month old same worm, they've multiplied. Don't know how they survive honestly, especially with being flooded with water frequently throughout the day.

I can only assume partially the same role as they would play in nature, They eat living organisms such as nematodes, protozoans, rotifers, bacteria, fungi in soil. Worms will also feed on the decomposing remains of other animals. Taken from google*.

We used to have a huge bug problem until we planted the nasturtiums. The bugs are long dead but all their little chitin husks littered the pebbles so perhaps the worms also feed on that, and convert it into something absorb-able by the plants roots?

They really are remarkable, worms. They make little sense to me.

Peverly that set up is incredible. Those plants look so healthy too! It's great that you're using it to help provide nutrition to kids.