Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The controller of the company has informed me that I must grow strawberries. You see, someone (must of been me) let drop that AP was great because we could have fresh strawberries every day (they do grow here)

So, help me before I get into trouble - what are your systems for growing strawberries? Feel free to point me to a good thread on the subject.

Thanks!

It is one of the easiest plants to produce in aqua/hydroponics.
Will need adding potash and phosphor for the fructification, so get the fish fed with fish meal and bananas!!!
Otherwise I suppose it won't be to much of trouble to get fruits that have gone bad around your place. Just recirculating the phosphor and potash from one fruit to another by the fish or by feeding bacteria with a fruit soup diluted in the growbeds.
I'll get my books out and come back to this later with a bit more precise infos.

Cool - thanks a lot. What structure would you think works the best? I see mentioned strawberry towers - I have a lot of potential grow beds I need to make - I have laid down the first 21 half barrels, but by my calculation with 2,000 liters of fish, I could go up to 36 half barrels, so I though I would try some towers.

I like strawberries. Do post some pictures when you get this going.

I heard that 4 inch /10 cm pipe gets clogged with roots. I was thinking of using 6 inch/15 cm pipe.

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Think Outside the Box, Do your Thinking for Yourself!

strawberrys can grow right in the regular grow beds as well, it is not absolutely necessary to have a special way to grow them. It is nice to be able to keep the berrys from laying on wet media or gravel of course.

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Aquaponic Lynx
TCLynx Bought The Farm
Old Main System
Old 300 gallon System

I know that they grow then in towers or in NFT tray, I suppose that flood and drain growbebs could be fine as long as you put only strawberrys in them, because they will grow like mad and send shoots all over the potential room they can get.

I've just had an idea: maybe you could do a venturi system on the water going to the growbeds that could be pumping the fruit solution like a dosing pump, the diameter of the pipe sucking the fruit solution would then be the dosing unit. We have a system like that at my work to dose the desinfectant in the water to clean the fish conditionning area and gear.
My theory of aquaponics is that fish act like a permanent dosing pump that automatically adapt to the environment conditions (less when cold, more with heat and sun). The thing is that it works better than hydroponics because there's no nutrient spikes so no stress for the plants, so no energy consumed to adapt to the situation( for stopping growing and starting the growth). So a dosing system would work the best for the hole system. Sorry I did a very long sentence here, but what do you think of it?

I think that they are quite easy to do so just try what you want to play with, like you'll be happy and your controller too.

I like the idea of a tower - should work well. Now I just have to get some plants!

Oh, if you all don't know, the controller is my wife who is an strawberry addict!

I've understood that, it must be an international women feature.

Well, my wife is North American too - but that would be International for all of you. I swear she married me for the strawberry patch my father has...

Heres one idea this tower is made from 3 old beer kegs welded together ind slits cut with an angle grinder its filled with scoria [hydrotron would be better] 1st photo just planted last one shows one of the plants had 54 strawberrys on it

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If it/s free pick it up
If it isent broke dont fix it

Strawberries often spread by runners. This makes towers great, as you plant at the top and they spill down the sides looking for more dirt (just like in the above pictures) The grow fine in beds, but that makes it a touch harder to find the fruit.
I'm currently seeing if I can train mine up onto a lattice, as I don't have a tower yet. :-)

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KudaPucat
A horse is only a horse for as long as we see it as a horse.
The Pale Horse Rides Again
My System #2

I have a couple of those clay strawberry pots (the kind with several plant holes around the sides of the pot as well as the top. It might work to simply place one of those in such a manner that water can flow through it before going into one of the beds.

Kind of a mini tower of sorts

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Aquaponic Lynx
TCLynx Bought The Farm
Old Main System
Old 300 gallon System

yeah they should work.
sort of a strawberry prefilter to the growbeds... :-)
Strawberries are high nitrate feeders I believe, so it will be interesting whether they can strip all the nitrates before the water hits the growbeds :-)
Keep us posted.

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KudaPucat
A horse is only a horse for as long as we see it as a horse.
The Pale Horse Rides Again
My System #2

Surely there would be a limit to uptake.