Hello from WV

[metalman]

I've been growing with hydroponics for three years and starting to try my hand at aquaponics. I currently have eight hydroponic systems going. I'm collecting parts for an aquaponic system and thinking about a greenhouse. This seems like a great list. I'm looking forward to getting my feet wet.

Jay

[Riverside]

Hi metalman,

Welcome! I came to aquaponics via the same route, hydroponics for five years; I'm still learning the ropes as to tilapia raising, and redesigning my hydroponics greenhouse for AP; quick question, with your hydroponics background, as you review the various systems shown on this site, what is your opinion as to the volume of the growbeds shown here?

[JCO]

Welcome to the show....pull up an easy chair, relax and stay awhile. New voices are always a welcome addition to our family..! Whatever questions you have on you mind, this is the place to get the answers :mrgreen:

[metalman]

Hi metalman,

Welcome! I came to aquaponics via the same route, hydroponics for five years; I'm still learning the ropes as to tilapia raising, and redesigning my hydroponics greenhouse for AP; quick question, with your hydroponics background, as you review the various systems shown on this site, what is your opinion as to the volume of the growbeds shown here?

I have been taking a minimalist approach with my hydroponic systems. Most of my systems use thirteen or sixteen 16 oz Solo cups filled with 4:1 perlite and vermiculite as the growing medium. The grow cups have been perforated in the bottom with a soldering iron. Nutriment is drip fed to each cup for 15 minutes per hour, sixteen hours a day.

Each system gets filled with five gallons of nutriments. Four of the systems is built on top of a fourteen or eighteen gallon Rubbermaid totes. Three are built on plastic wine barrel liners. I also have a commercial Verti-gro unit a friend gave me that holds twenty lettuce plants. I'm getting great grow rates but have to deal with eight circulating pumps and three air pumps.

I'd like to consolidate the systems so I can eliminate some of the pumps. Raising fish would be nice too.

[Riverside]

My setup was similar, with 2 liter pop bottles on a PVC grid, using the perforated solo cups and the volcanic cocoa cocoa puffs after germination in rockwool cubes, with the nutrient pump on a fifteen minute off, two minute on schedule; works very well, grows amazingly big plants from such a small root area;

One of the things I'm going to experiment with is using much smaller grow beds for the plants but still have a mass of gravel to the side for a large biofilter effect; obviously using fishie water for the ferts is much more dilute than hydroponic solution, so I'm sure the root zones will be a bit bigger, but it seems some of the growbeds I've seen in AP systems seem to be way too big, but that's to be determined :D