Aquaponics

[Sill]

I'm trying to come up with a plan to do aquaponics using a duck pool instead of one for fish. Anyone have any ideas on how to keep the system balance without adding things that would interfere with the ducks' health?

It should work the same as using fish. You just need to make sure to have enough grow beds to balance the bio load that the ducks will make so it will take a lot of tweaking to get the balance right. Always start out with more grow beds than you think you need.

Really there isn't anything that you need to add that would interfere with the ducks' or fishes health, it's just finding the right amount of grow beds to get the water processed and clean. You will probably need additional filters to help with solids like a swirl filter or bio ball filter, maybe both or several of each?

 

[RichnSteph]

I'm trying to come up with a plan to do aquaponics using a duck pool instead of one for fish. Anyone have any ideas on how to keep the system balance without adding things that would interfere with the ducks' health?

Duckaponics! I actually have one duck in my AP set up right now and zero fish. Well... we had some minnows for a while but the duck ate them. That one duck sitting in 700 gallons of water is feeding two 4'x12' grow beds that are 8" deep in media. It took weeks of running the system to get the water to start to clear up and just this last week I've seen a difference in clarity. The ammonia, PH, nitrite and nitrate levels are all perfect. Heck they are better than my aquarium in the house..... This past Sunday I planted probably 50 more plants (seeds) in the system to increase our harvestable yield and the amount of filtration we have. So far the seeds are coming up much much better than any of the ones I tried to start in a little seed-starter container.

You will probably need additional filters to help with solids like a swirl filter or bio ball filter, maybe both or several of each?

A swirl filter is a must have on any well established system. I've got to get a pair of them built on mine soon.

 

[RichnSteph]

Just for an idea on how you might set yours up. In the middle there is the duck pond. It's not nearly that green right now.

 

[RainMD]

Hey, that is a good design. I was envisioning something similar.

I jumped back on here to share a video I found. What do you think of this filter? Would it do the trick ya think?

 

[Sill]

Hey, that is a good design. I was envisioning something similar.

I jumped back on here to share a video I found. What do you think of this filter? Would it do the trick ya think?

That can work, you will just have to play around with your set up to see of you need additional filters in case one like this fills up too fast.

 

[RichnSteph]

wow! that is truely amazing! how does one get started with such an adventure?

youtube

 

[RichnSteph]

Oh and some great news here on the AP front. Our pond/beds finally ran through a complete cycle and our 700+ gallon pond is almost crystal clear! I can see the bottom and the fish swimming in there. Even our plants are doing better.

 

[knjinnm]

If you have green water that is all the food they need. Do you have access to daphnia? If not I could send you a culture, start them in a 20-30 gallon rubber-maid container.

 

[RichnSteph]

This sounds amazing. Anyone in the PNW do this? Do I need to do it indoors?

Can anyone recommend a good starter site where I can learn how to set up?

You don't need to set this up indoors. Mine is outside in the back yard with the chickens and I've seen some amazing setups involving an in-ground pool. Information is all over the internet about this stuff. What I did was hit YouTube for some initial information and then kept chasing web sites till I thought I had enough in my head to get started.

 

[RichnSteph]

We had another birthing in the AP tank this week. I dipped out about 20 fry last night and put them in the brooder inside. There were others in there but they were too small and slipped through the net. I'll try again in a couple days when they've done a little growing.