Aquaponics

[lazy gardener]

I envy you folks with you AP systems. Too cold here. But, when we had some land cleared, I had a couple of bubbling sink holes show up on the front lawn. I'm thinking that, while it makes the lawn a hazard, and we'll not be able to mow it without putting pontoons on the mower, perhaps, we can excavate one of those springs, and turn it into a little trout pond, and save the other one for a fresh water supply. It would be super wonderful if that worked out, as our well is very deep, with poor water, and poor recovery rate.

 

[Sill]

Hmmm. I knew that they were predatory but thought that they'd leave everyone else alone as long as they were fed. Thank you for the heads up! If we decide to still go with some catfish I can put them in one tank and the perch in another to hopefully keep the cats from eating all of our fingerlings.

*laugh* At least you've accomplished something! So far all I have is two tanks, one of which is dry at the moment due to a missing plug, and a whole lot of plumbing parts and dreams. If I can get them fenced in, the plug installed and all the plumbing done I'll post up some pictures.

That sucks. I'm hoping you can get it fixed!

Still trying to find an affordable 330 gallon IBC. There are a couple my DH found locally, I'm hoping we can get to one of them before someone else does.

 

[Sill]

I envy you folks with you AP systems. Too cold here. But, when we had some land cleared, I had a couple of bubbling sink holes show up on the front lawn. I'm thinking that, while it makes the lawn a hazard, and we'll not be able to mow it without putting pontoons on the mower, perhaps, we can excavate one of those springs, and turn it into a little trout pond, and save the other one for a fresh water supply. It would be super wonderful if that worked out, as our well is very deep, with poor water, and poor recovery rate.

Trout would be good! Get some photos posted if you go ahead with this project.

 

[Tiller]

Trout would be good! Get some photos posted if you go ahead with this project.

As long as summer temps don't get too high, and O2 in the water doesn't get too low trout would work well. Trout tend not to be very tolerant of large algal blooms and muddy water for extended periods also.

 

[politicalcenter]

This is a picture of my fist pond in the process of being built. I don't have a picture of the swimming pool I got on sale at Wal Mart but it is a rigid steel framed pool with a vinyl liner. It holds about 1500 gallons. The pond in the picture is about 2000 gallons.

I don't have a good camera and have to borrow one from work to get pictures.


We did stone mosaics on the outside and only needed a couple of repairs after winter.

My slow computer won't let me load any more pictures right now but the basin waterfall is now larger sandstone rock and native plants. I have a few cattails, and some water mint and other plants I never saw before. The water has channel catfish, tadpoles,tuffy minnows, and goldfish. The water is pretty clear so far....this time.

My swimming pool pond is green so I used an old rubber livestock tank and filled it with plants just today. The skimmer pulls the water out of the pond, into the plant filter . I used some PVC elbows (90 degree) and PVC pipe as a siphon to put the water back into the pool. We will see if it helps clear the water.

Even though I know nothing about aquaponics so I went to Home Depot and bought some plastic 1/2 inch hardware cloth and zip ties and made little holders for tomato plants and zip tied it together for baskets and filled them with hay (old hay) with rocks on the bottom and zip tied them to the side of the pool in the water. I did the same thing with broccoli plants. We'll so how it goes. I guess I could feed through the leaves if I have to.

The pool has channel catfish and bluegill. As soon as I get my water right I will get some more catfish and some coppernose bluegill. I have another cement pond that leaks and a "mushroom" pool yet to fill.

If I lived in the great white north I would probably go with Yellow perch and native gills. I don't like trout at all to eat.

 

[johnsanders]

I have 3-5" blue tilapia for your aquaculture projects. Pic up only in central florida ......1 or a thousand 1.00 each

 

[RichnSteph]

Alrighty! I've gotten both beds built, the stands built and leveled and the beds up where they need to be and leveled as well. I pumped out the duck pond (it was sooooooo stinky) and refilled it with clean water just to keep it from getting worse. The liner has been ordered and should be here in a week. Once the liners are in I'll go pick up 2 yards of lava rock from a local supplier and get them in place. Hoping to get all this done and the plumbing finalized before the end of he month so I can actually plant something. On a good note our BSF bin is active with females laying eggs so in about 30 days we'll have grubs self harvesting to feed the fish. Oh, that reminds me that I need to get fish soon. *laugh* So much to do and so little time.

 

[3goodeggs]

okay. I have to Have my husband read this thread. We are setting up hydroponics/aquaponics and the set is good, but deciding what fish to use is...

No one here really likes tilapia, I am thinking comets. If we are not going to eat them we can have fun watching them.

@johnsanders do you have other fish available?

 

[RainMD]

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?

 

[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?