Indoor Aquaponics

This it the beginning of our indoor system we are experimenting with. We traded a guy an old sewing machine we were not using for the fish tank, the tubs were purchased at good will for $0.99 and on have off day so $0.50 each. Holes were drilled into the bottom and filled with the unwanted lava rock from our yard. The people who owned our house before us must have owned stock in rock and stone company. We let it run for a few days, then added fish. We will be adding some grow lights tonight. The grow lights were purchased at Menards for $20 for the fixture and another $20 for the bulbs. Fist time attempting this indoors so will keep you posted. If it goes well will switch over to Tilapia.



Why goldfish? We can buy 100 feeder fish at our pet store for $12.95. is not bad if something goes wrong. Plus they grow bigger and will eat algae, duckweed, and other scraps put into the tank. They are relatively hardy and will take abuse while we work bugs out of the systems.

Aquaponics greenhouse

So we have finally gotten around to taking pictures of the greenhouse and aquaponics set up. The first picture is what it looked like while we were digging the pond. DH had everything going to a 55 gal rain barrel until the pond liner came and we dug out the bottom.



The other pics are as it is today. We have harvested a lot of the lettuce so it looks a little bare. Also we had a pump failure and didn’t catch it for a few days so we had some plants die off. That and the incredible heat has lowered our production. We could still add double the plants which we hope to as soon as cooler weather starts. DH built a bridge, and added 55 gal barrels along the bottom edge for additional growth areas. Currently we are growing in the greenhouse romaine lettuce, Swiss chard, spinach, broccoli, two different types of basil, marshmallow root, cucumber, marigolds, unknown melon at this point we think honeydew, watermelon, 3 different varieties of tomatoes, some water plants to help with water quality and reduce evaporation, and duck weed. For those that don’t know tilapia and other fish will eat tilapia and has a very high protein content. DH heard that it was higher than soybeans but we really haven’t looked to see if this was true. In the pond we have frogs, tadpoles (mosquito control), couple hundred goldfish (test system until know will last over winter and not kill off tilapia),and crawfish (cleanup of dead organic matter on bottom. And they look cool.

If your are wondering about the stacked cat litter boxes…We were having difficulties with the pump and hoses clogging with sediment and organic matter. DH made this biofilter on the cheap. We had a bunch of these buckets around. Why go buy a 5 gal bucket at a big box store. These are free if you have cats and use this litter, and if not, there are tones in the recycle bin in your areas. So he drilled holes in the bottoms of the top buckets, filled with lava rock (surplus from yard) and places a pump in the bottom. We have a larger pump in the pond with better filters that feed the biofilter. The dirty water trickles down over the rocks where beneficial bacteria remove ammonia, and eat wastes. The water gets oxygenated and goes to the bottom bucket. That water is pumped to the top of the grow tubes. The grow tubes are 4” sewer drain pipes with 2” holes cut along the top. Overflow from the biofilter waterfall back to the pond for more aeration.


If you have questions or want a more detailed picture or description let us know. Do our best to help.

We all work on the homestead.

So we have even gotten the littlest redneck to do chores. Here she is washing dishes with her older sister.

And 20 minutes later telling us "we better be using paper plates tonight cuz she ain't doin dishes again.""you will face hot death from my light saber if you dirty one more dish!"

Delay in posting

Big delay in posting but been busy. The pond/pit/greenhouse is officially 100% in and operational in the greenhouse. We made a decision that since this was the first year and we have no historical data on a pond inside a greenhouse would do over the winter we didn’t want to invest into Tilipia this year. At around $200/100 fish and a required growing time of 6-9 mo it would hit us in the middle of winter. We decided to get another 100 feeder fish at the pet store and see how they all do. 100 feeder fish – $15 bucks. DH build his own biofilter out of recycled materials. This helps work with the fish waste, bacteria and plants to create a balance within the nitrogen cycle.

We took a trip out to Aquatic Designs a pond store about 50 min away. Way better than the local place we have by our house. Bigger selection, more fish, and really helpful. Lots of ponds of every size to get ideas from. We bought some new water plants to go onto the deck/off deck ponds (we added another in ground pond off the deck). We picked up some giant tadpoles for hopes of bullfrogs later this year or next. We learned that American Bullfrogs take around 2 years to go from tadpole to frog. We got them for algae control and mosquito control.

Egg production is lower and we think due to the warmer days of summer. The ladies spend most of the day in the shade under our deck. One of these days we will shoot some videos to post. The ladies are just hours of entertainment. It is like a relay race, game of tag, scavenger hunt, and comedy all rolled into one when we throw something out for them. Worde really cannot describe and even better if you have some cartoon music in the background.

The garden is going like crazy. We harvested 5 large yellow squash. The chickens harvested their own 4 or 5 squash. Our fault for not closing the garden gate. The first of 4 rows of corn will be ready any day. We planted one row every 2-3 weeks so that all of our corn won’t come on at one time. We harvested purple Cherokee green beans and Kentucky wonder green beans and cooked up a big pot in out crock for Father’s day. Sadly our outdoor broccoli just couldn’t take root. Either a bug, slug, or the ravenous vultures (the ladies) kept taking all the plantings out. We are harvesting hot peppers, and have bell peppers coming on the size of a baseball. Almost all of our tomato plants have tomotatoes, but are all still green. New “volunteer” tomato plants are found almost every time we go out to the garden. There has never been plants in these locations, last year it was grass, and no seeds were brought out there. Best guess we have 30+ tomato plants at this point, and could be any number of varieties. Just have to wait and see. The eggplants have flowers, and the onions and garlic are doing well. The potatoes are not doing so hot, but we will just have to wait and see. We harvested our third bunch of radishes, and just planted another batch. The lettuce outside has been fried by the lack of water and heat. The spinach went to seed real quick, and we were able to harvest a little, but only enough for 2 salads. We added some loofa plants in hopes of getting those for shower. Never grown before so should be interesting.

Now, in the greenhouse we have gotten 5 large cucumbers, two heads of lettuce, and everything is growing like crazy. The watermelon finally has a small fruit, and we have more poles for plants. We should be able to start harvesting 5-10 salads a week from the greenhouse or more. We have found that we can grow broccoli in the greenhouse, a and now have tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, swiss chard, several medicinal herbs, garlic, several bunches of basil (harvested 3 times already), chives (which have been harvested at least 6 times already), water chestnut, zucchini, and water plants. The water plants grow like crazy, and we have given some to our neighbor, and would like to sell if anyone wants some floating water plants.

The medicinal herb garden is growing and blooming. We have taken some of the extra space until the herbs get going and put in peas, cucumber, peppers (which do have medicinal properties) culinary herbs, and along the fence watermelon, tomatoes, and more peas.

So we had some left over containers (due to get more soon) and we made big pot gardens on our deck. In there we have the water features, and now watermelons (we have like 10 fruit already) beans, culinary herbs, morning glories, marigolds, and moon flowers. We put in some mosquito plants, and put in a new wooden picnic table. The new pond by the deck has a walkway for the chickens to drink. Currently fenced off until our boarder plants can grow a bit more. We planted buckwheat in punches to hopefully keep them from getting into the cucumbers we put in to grow up the deck.