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Was looking into other fish. If I am able to do the larger one, I will definitely be looking at a larger / tastier fish species. 100 gallons is definitely limiting.

Finally getting around to starting my NFT aquaponic build. Figured I'd track it here in case anyone else is interested in doing something like this. This is my first hydro/aquaponics build and is more or less something to play around with and decide if I want to set up a larger system on the backside of our property. Sort of a pipe dream at this point, but would really like to eventually be able to grow vegetables year round. Starting small initially. Going to be a 4 channel 8ft NFT system, with a 100 gallon stock tank. An NFT type system is basically a set of shallow plastic or metal troughs where plants sit in an inert growing medium and water slowly flows over the roots of the plants providing nutrients. Since the growing base is shallow, NFT is suitable for smaller plants with limited root structure, like herbs, lettuce, and spinach. Will probably add on a small dutch bucket or ebb and flow containers so I can grow tomatoes and peppers at the same time, but initially starting with NFT. The benefit of NFT over just growing in the ground, is that water consumption is reduced by about 90%. Each channel will have 12 spaces for plants, so the entire setup will allow growing 48 plants at a time. Currently planning on several species of lettuce, spinach, arugula, and basil, oregano, thyme, and dill. Summer heat may prevent growing lettuce but there's a few species that are supposedly more bolt-proof than others, so will give those a try if needed. Can also grow more robust leafy vegetables like kale, collards, mustard greens, but they need to be harvested before they get too large. Instead of using a water and chemical nutrient mixture like traditional hydroponics, I am using a stock tank which will be stocked with bluegill or another native fish. Tilapia are essentially illegal in Texas and the ones that are legal can't survive water temperatures lower than about 70 degrees, so trying a native fish as an alternative. The fish waste contributes the nutrients to the plants which continuously filter the water. Ideally, the fish can be eaten as well once they are mature. Picture of a large NFT system at epcot. NFT channels are ordered and picking up a stock tank in the next week. Using pressure treated 2x4's for the stand to hold the channels. Will post pictures as the project progresses.

I saw the pictures of your small turtles in your other post. We were doing yardwork this weekend and found 2 of these little guys in our wet weather pond which is almost dry. I guess I'm a turtle owner now as well. Have them in our patio pond until they get too large. This is the larger one which my daughter named Chester. He's missing an eye but seems to be in good spirits.

Grew up in Colorado so used to mountain bike a ton, and raced up to sport class, I believe the same as current cat 3. I'm a physiological tragedy when it comes to VO2 potential so have always been much better at less aerobic sports like climbing. So busy and with other hobbies, rock climbing, paintball, traveling, owning a house, reef tank, I hardly make it out anymore.

Real alligators. They were part of the project to grow them for farms and to reintroduce them back into the wild when they were endangered, which they no longer are. Apparently they still make some decent money growing them for a few years and selling them to alligator farms when they're 4 or 5 feet long. Probably used for food after that. Fish farms also use them to clean up fish waste after processing the fish. These ones were only about 18 inches or so. I didn't get pictures of all the plants, but they probably are growing 30 or so types of fruit, and another 50 - 100 types of veggies and edible flowers. They also have a culturing lab where they're propagating several different plants by leaf and stem cuttings. They're also directly working on a project to try and find a natural way to protect stone fruit from a pathogen that wiped out most stone fruit in Europe that showed up in Pennsylvania a few years ago. These would include cherries, peach and plum families, and avocados.

Backyard aquaponics:

NFT: Sand hydro:

Vertical: Aero: Aqua:

Nutrients: Desktop: Hanging:

Just got back from a trip to Florida and did a tour of the epcot hydro and aquaponic facilities. Wanted to share a few pictures. This is one of the most interesting setups I've ever seen. They have just about every type of hydroponic setup possible. Everything is non-GMO and no pesticides are used at all. Not technically organic because the nutrient mixtures. One of their single tomato plants produced over 30,000 tomatoes in a year. I didn't get many good pictures of their aquaponics because the lighting was poor and I only had my phone, but they are growing tilapia, American freshwater eel, sturgeon, American alligator, and freshwater shrimp with their aquaponics setups. We've been looking into setting up a back yard aquaponics setup since we bought our house last year. This was really amazing to see all this up close and get a good idea on what sort of system would be most appropriate for what space and budget we have to work with. Hydro:

Welcome

You may want to make sure to run carbon with them as well. They are one of the outright leaders in chemical warfare, and from what I've read it's something other than the terpenoids that soft coral use to destroy their neighbors. There was an article about the ORA goniopora operation, and the people that worked with the coral all became extremely sensitive to them and couldn't even put their hands in the water after working with them for just a few weeks. You can buy phytoplankton or start your own culture. You would want to disable any mechanical filtration while feeding phyto or other suspended foods.

Figured I'd comment on this since I work in credit card processing specifically in IT. Their message is pretty vague. Assuming they were using even the slightest bit of security and PCI best practices, it should have been impossible for someone to access full card numbers with the expiration date. I'm speculating / hoping that they were storing this offsite and full unencrypted card numbers weren't actually exposed. If this isn't the case, they're going to get some otherworldly fines because it's absolutely prohibited to store card numbers on an internet facing server, and any storage obviously needs to be encrypted. I've seen fines in the 6 and 7 figures from V/MC when they determine a merchant was egregiously negligent on securing their data. If they were storing full card numbers on a public facing server, it would likely fall into this category. In the case of the target and other breaches, hackers were able to install malware on target servers, and then hop across private networks until they were finally able to access sensitive data. What made some of the big data thefts so bad was that they took data over a long period of time and didn't immediately use the data they were stealing, so by the time it was discovered, the actual number of cards involved was massive. Also, if anyone is interested in a company that provides one time virtual credit card services, check these guys out (No personal affiliation with this company): https://www.abine.com/index.html They make a great free chrome plugin that blocks tracking software as well.

I do not like the massive several hundred snail /hermit CUC's that many recommend. It just ends up being a constant nutrient source as the snails slowly die off over the first year or two. I believe in stocking a CUC only as needed. If you're just looking for a general film and light GHA, maybe a turbo, and get a half dozen trochus which are great with film algae and will reproduce in the tank if the conditions and available food is present. You'll naturally get colonista snails, bristle worms, and asterina stars. After that, unless it's something just to have for the appeal, like a fighting conch, or some ornamental crab or shrimp, I would stock carefully.

Branching looks like some sort of sponge or macro. Here's the guide I usually use, but I can't find anything that resembles those: http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchhikers.html

LED strips and fuge PAR38 lights, MP10, and ADA tank still available. All are OBO within reason. Come on folks, I might have to start another tank if I can't get rid of this stuff...

The glass hydor ones are decent and cheap. Make sure to confirm the temp with another thermometer no matter what you use. I definitely wouldn't use an always on with SW.

I'll bet the large size ones would be really close to a correct fit.

Reducing NO3 and PO4 should definitely help. It won't get rid of glass scrubbing completely but usually slows it down quite a bit. Can't really help much on the xenia. Might try making some kalk pasta and covering small portions of it. Definitely run a bunch of carbon if you try this method. As far as the globe thing goes, if you put the pellets in a stock reactor the water flow hits the bottom and bounces upward, but because of the 90 corner between the bottom and sides, the water flow loses a ton of energy. Typically after a few weeks, the pellets can start clumping up or just don't tumble effectively. If you cut some type of sphere and place it in the bottom, basically making the bottom a bowl shape, the incoming water has a lot more force when it bounces against the bottom. You also have to mod something to keep the pellets off the bottom, but that can usually be done with some craft mesh, fastened to the inlet tube about an inch above the bottom. GFO doesn't need to tumble near as much as pellets, so it's not normally needed.

You can get plastic globes at a craft store. The ones I had were already split in half and were made for making christmas ornaments. Use a dremmel to cut the correct size circle and put it in the bottom of the TLF reactor. Increases the tumbling by several times.

It will drop the NO3 but won't do much for the PO4. Almost a certainty you will need to run GFO.

I'm a huge fan of the tunze osmolators. They have 2 sensors, one being optical, and include a pump so you don't have to mess with an aqualifter or trying to use a powerhead. The hydor smart level is another good one with a really small sensor. AutoAqua also makes one with a small sensor.

Welcome. Looks like you already have a great little setup going.