Aquaponics pond

[Godly3vil]

Post a picture lol.

[alanmin4304]

Unfortunately the floating plants are a no no here (Water Hyacinth---Eichornia cassipes)

[Wellydave]

I've had in mind something like this as my next project..

http://www.amazon.com/Farm-Little-Tokyo-Without-Fish/dp/B004O44XE2

Tropical fish (inside) tank being rebuilt at moment, fish (clown loaches) outside in a plastic tub at moment near the aquaponics pond.. I pulled out a bogwood log that had 2 years of uncontrolled java fern on it, I was shocked how much plant matter was on it.. (maybe I should post a picture?) I digress, but I'm considering building an indoor aquaponics setup and have year round cherry tomatoes/parsley etc while keeping my nitrate levels low.

I like the above small education project, but bigger is usually better :cr9:

yeah ive been thinking of setting someting like that one up myself after seeing yours. we have a nice spot on our deck but i kinda want to do it inside so i can use a heater with tropical fish as i have a excessive amount of guppy fry at the moment haha. will start a thread if i do do it. would also be keen to come check yours out at some point if posible so i can see how you did it?

also if your keen to mabie part with this bogwood and java fern let me know :lol: :thup:

[Dr A]

Unfortunately the floating plants are a no no here (Water Hyacinth---Eichornia cassipes)

Presumably you could use other floating plants though if you needed too... but wouldn't they just suck up excess nutrients and stop your actual productive crop getting them?

[maxim_nz]

Post a picture lol.

ok, here you go. (tape measure extended out to 80cm for scale)

It's about 80~90cm long all up including log, approx 30cm thick.. (was squashed into tank literally)

View "inside" bogwood log - aka Clown Loach motel

[Godly3vil]

Wow, and that grew outside??

[maxim_nz]

Wow, and that grew outside??

Nope, inside in a standard 3 foot tropical tank (it was growing out the top and I used to prune it with scissors) tank is drained at moment as I had so much debris being trapped by the plant it was causing issues. (there is a 2nd bogwood log as well with java fern)

Aquaponics pond is keeping the larger Java Fern/Bogwood alive outside till I can rebuild inside tank over the holidays (pond is around 18~20C at the moment)

Does anyone in the Wellington area have some good recommendations of natural/local gravel? Fine and preferably light colour..

[Godly3vil]

Will the clown loaches survive that sort of temperature for a prolonged period of time?

[maxim_nz]

Will the clown loaches survive that sort of temperature for a prolonged period of time?

No, using a little mini greenhouse over the top of a 65 litre tub with usual tank heater and it seems to keep it insulated overnight. They have been outside since Sunday and everyone is thriving.

Maybe I should share the story of my mate who moved to Thailand 10 years ago, of course he fell in love with a nice Thai girl, and they married and live north of Bangkok.. anyway, during the floods last year he sent me a hilarious email saying they had abandoned the downstairs due to flooding and snake heads, catfish and gourami's had taken up residence in his living room.. this is getting off topic. Sorry.

Has anyone else tried any form of aquaponics? I'm keen to see others pictures. I can't be alone doing this...

Update: On Saturday I planted some Cucumbers, more Cherry tomatoes, Gherkins, Chillies, and all the seeded tomatoes I grew recently (and enjoyed a fresh strawberry)

[Barnacle]

Not doing it at the moment, but i can see myself giving it a shot

[GrahamC]

My aquaponics setup has been pretty bad so far. My mistake was leaving all the duck weed in the bath so it was grabbing all the nitrates before the terrestrial plants had a chance .. I've never had any detectable nitrates. But I've only got 10 gold fish in the bath.

Today I harvested 1kg of duck weed, and hope that my nitrates will soon start to go up. Also planted a banana skin in the grow bed to try and drive aphids away. Adding 1 capful of Seasol once a fortnight, and also added some Flourish iron last week ( couldn't find Yates chelated iron ).

[maxim_nz]

Update 21/1/2013

Well with lots of goldfish, and feeding them daily, it results in lots of muck.. got totally sick of cleaning the gutless little sponge filter every 3 days in the 3000l/hr pond pump, so did what I did years back with a well stocked 6' tank. I bought a spa pool filter cartridge and connected it up. Now have crystal clear water once again. I used to have a 50 sq/ft cartridge in the old filter, this one is somewhat smaller, but I would think should run around a month before flow really drops off. I left the filter out for the photo. Will hide it away later under some plants. I let it run for two weeks before I had to clean it out of curiosity and flow from pump had not dropped at all.

I got the cartridge from these guys in lower hutt

http://www.poolsandspas.co.nz/Pages/aboutus.html

Very helpful staff, and helped with the coupling to the pump as well.

I like having the fish in view (most aquaponics seem to hide away the fish in black tank) so why not make the most of the goldfish colours and give them crystal clean water to show off..

Overview of central area: pump and filter lower right

Pump and filter only provide mechanical filtration, growbed provides biological filtration. Good combination

Feeding time - getting really tame now.

After years of tropicals only, I really enjoy these goldfish

Cats enjoy drinking out of the pond as well. (not fallen in yet, totally ignore the fish)

Got cucumbers and gherkins growing..

Also the aquaponics favourite

and my final experiment which was the grab the cut off spring onions stumps from the Christmas potato salad and shove them in the grow bed.. REBORN!

Love to see other photos from others doing the same in NZ.. If anyone in Wellington area has goldfish that are too big for you tank I can give them a very nice home. PM if interested.

[aquadude]

hi all

sorry I didnt know that this thread existed so started a thread called aquaponics...until caryl informed me. I was at the doctors waiting room and reading an issue of nz gardening and had a good article on this concept

Question - how do you gauge on what sized pump as in litres per minute ratio for aquaponics

Has there been any new research on if any legally kept ediable fish that produces enough waste

the photos like great and the discussions are so educational...thanks

[Caryl]

http://www.berrysmith.org/projects/aqua ... ydroponics

[maxim_nz]

hi all

sorry I didnt know that this thread existed so started a thread called aquaponics...until caryl informed me. I was at the doctors waiting room and reading an issue of nz gardening and had a good article on this concept

Question - how do you gauge on what sized pump as in litres per minute ratio for aquaponics

Has there been any new research on if any legally kept edible fish that produces enough waste

the photos like great and the discussions are so educational...thanks

In reply to Aquadude:

Aquaponics is not new, you can waste hours doing youtube research.. Aquaponics does not seem to be that widespread in NZ, perhaps due to our good growing climate (apart from recent drought summer) and lack of (legal) and decent fish species to suit our milder climate. The Aussies are masters at it unfortunately.

That should not put off those who like fish and like growing own food. I've had lots of salads this year, cucumbers & gerkins still going great, chives, chillies, spring onions, celery, strawberries and a few tomatoes. The recent water shortage has not stopped growth as only a tiny bit of water is lost to evaporation, otherwise all water is continually recycled :-) My neighbours greenhouse tomatoes are wilting, mine are still flowering and fruiting. Amazingly my avocado stone is now a 80cm high plant!

Pump: A good question: I used what was available. You can bleed off excess flow into the grow bed into strawberry towers, NFT growing gullies, or simply as a return water feature to oxygenate. I think mine does 800l/hr but it would not do half that with filter and pipes slowing it down. As long as it triggers the siphon that works for me. I think you should find answers out there if you look around a few forums.

There are folks out there who are doing a variation on aquaponics and hydroponics called dutch buckets. I think this has promise and my strawberries which are growing in a slow drip 2L milk plastic container seem to verify this theory. This is a much more simple setup and looks more normal then a huge grow bed setup. This is a 18min youtube clip if you want to go over it:

Tips to share................

It's addictive and never a finished project

Siphons are fiddly, be patient. It will go eventually, try and try again. Getting air and oxygen to the roots is crucial for growth.

NEVER plant mint with anything else. Keep in own separate container. Roots will block everything. Otherwise it tastes great.

Don't plant strawberries and tomatoes in same root space. Grow in separate containers.

Basil will attract snails like you would not believe. (old beer attracts them also, use as a snail trap)

Whiz up in food-processor a huge pile of mint, spring onions and chives. Super delicious salad topping without the onion sting.

A rusty nail in the water will provide iron supplement for plants instead of expensive additives

Hydrotron as a grow media is worth it in my view, around 30cm deep growbed is optimum for root development.

No weeds (top of grow bed stays dry)

Worms love the growbed also and breakdown solid waste.

Legitimate excuse to have more fish

[furosha]

Hi, Ive been following this thread in the background.. Busy designing my own aquaponics system up here in new market.

Im not greatly experienced with fish, plants are my greatest interest and i have experience with hydro/aeroponics. One of the the aspects that has really attracted me to aquaponics is the simplicity and balance of the systems over traditional hydroponics.

I've decided based on your advice and my own research that goldfish are the best fish to start with. I will continue researching on paper the possibility of an edible fish on the small scale.

The dutch bucket method is not really new, but it could be a much simpler/safer method than large beds. Its possible to start with fewer buckets, and add as you need them, thus resulting in a lower initial cost. If a crack develops in a bed with flood and drain and you have no protection against this, you could end up with both dead fish and dead plants. Drippers would of course slow this in the case of a damaged/blocked bed. Replacement and maintenance would also be simpler. It would even be possible to physically move the contents of one bucket into another without serious disturbance to the roots.

[Likoma]

So for sometime now my partner and I have been playing with the idea of incorporating an aqua-ponics scheme that could work within our current hatchery setup.

I love the concept that we end up with herbs and vegetables as a by-product of our fishkeeping.

It has been a steep learning curve as most new ventures are.

I am wrapped with results so far. We are experiencing great growth and massive increase of root mass. This week has been the first opportunity to sample some of the produce.

They were some very powerful chillies.

A wide shot of one of the aquaponic setups.

Basil, lettuce and chillies

Root mass being investigated by an Azureus male.

Lettuce, perpetual spinach and silverbeet.

Plant-lings growing on the Poret foam

Basil growing on the Hamburg Matten Filter.

[Caryl]

Who knew fish keeping could be so tasty! :thup:

[maxim_nz]

Just awesome, love the chillies, mine are almost there too. :cophot:

We've all heard of MTS (multiple tank syndrome) some of us now have MGS (multiple growbed syndrome)

Love to read about other NZ aquaponics experiments...

[camtang]

Is there anything you havnt tryed to do with your Poret?

Cool set up! :cophot:

[maxim_nz]

I'm guessing there were a few folk in Wellington or other dry area's of the country who faced challenges with lack of water (Wellington had an outside water ban) I was left unable to effectively clean the large capacity spa pool cartridge that did the mechanical filtration for my aquaponics pond. (I had to use a small water blaster to clean it)

So the previous post on plant roots gave me an idea.. why not use some of my plants with large root mass as a physical filter?

So I got one of these storage boxes, blue one, same as yellow one in photo.

The I used the brick in the bottom of storage box and discarded mint cutoff + some excess celery which had taken over with masses of root. Sat the plants on top of the brick and placed back into pond. Pump now pushes water into filter rather than pulling it out via cartridge.

Close up of mint root mass (really invasive stuff, keep it away from your growbeds if you want to use flood and drain.)

This is how it looked once setup (this whole process took 10mins tops) I leaned the storage box slightly forward so it spills out the front grab handle hole..

APPROX 1 MONTH LATER. Verdict: Water still clear, in fact slightly clearer than before. I have around 50 goldfish in here, and they are very well feed. They make lots of waste. Mint and celery went crazy in this box, and roots have taken over so the pump water has to go through the roots before exiting back into tank.

I'm happy and will refine this filtration method further, still work in progress.

[TomGilberg]

cooooooool

[livebearer_breeder]

would pumice be a safe plant media for fish?

[SamH]

would pumice be a safe plant media for fish?

I use it as a biological filter media without issues so I'd assume so.

[trinox]

This is a great thread