Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My little balcony unit. Made using an Ikea Antonius unit that I bought for $8.40 on Ebay.

Still not fully up and running because the outdoor timer I bought ended up facing the wrong way after I plugged it in.

Nice little set up,Kravmum! Ikea gets the imagination going!!

Very nice system!

The top of your media looks very wet though. How much clearance from the top of the water to the top of the media do you have?

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Rsevs3, it was wet bc i had just washed it but after a lot of tweaking i finally managed to get it to about 2cm from the top of the grow media.

I am a little confused by different things I've read online about having a multi-spray feed into the gb (so that fish effluent doesn't accumulate in one spot), and having a single outlet into the gb to prevent algae from growing on top of the grow media & damaging plants. Right now, I'm using the multi-spray.

Would appreciate any advice you can give.

Seamonkey, my next Ikea hack will hopefully be a hanging strawberry grower made from their plastic bag dispenser!

Sounds like you have it all under control Kravmum. If you find that you are getting a bit of algae on your media under your hose then just use something to weigh it down directly onto the media. You shouldnt have any problems then. The algae shouldnt damage any plants i wouldnt suspect.

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Loving it!! IKEA AQUAPONICS who would have thought?? OOH am I allowed to say that? Mods please step in if I have said something I shouldnt have

In relation to the spray bar and gunk build up. Worms are your best friend here.

I noticed my return flow from my GB's was a bit shabby yesterday (hadnt cleaned the pipes for probably 3 months). So I removed them and cleaned out a pile of gunk, most of the holes in my distribution pipes were blocked and the water flow was restricted greatly.

There was piles of goop under the distribution pipes so I ran my hands through it to bury it down a bit and it was a worm frenzy in amongst the media. They love that stuff and its all beneficial goodness.

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Phew! Slipped under the radar with the IKEA plug!!

(Browsing IKEA website for FT and bed ideas)

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Ooh! Have to clarify that I got the ikea idea from a Japanese Aquaponics website. I'm not that creative! I just thought I was neat & compact, perfect for a little space.

*it was neat & compact...

What a great looking system!

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