59 replies to this topic

[Ivan Sng]

Well I am pretty sure there was no Aquaponics category when I first joined. Anyways since it is here now, I will show you our first aquaponics system.

1000L fish tank with 2x 500L growbeds plus 1x 500L growbeds converted into a yabbie/goldfish tank housed under a growbed.

In the fish tank, there is currently about 21x barramundi growing out. Average length about a 30cm ruler... Will be harvesting time in April.

In the growbeds, there aren't really good growth mainly due to the fact that we did not get around to providing any shade during the hotter summer periods. Will be more prepared next summer.

In the underbed yabbie/goldfish tank, there are about 8 adult size yabbies and lots of smaller yabbies (from juveniles to 3-4cm). 3 goldfishes (about 6cm in length) have bred and we managed to find about 7 young goldfishes. This tank is just basically a pond really, had some duckweed to help use up the ammonia but again the strong summer sunlight and heat has not helped the duckweed to grow... so algae is growing in the tank instead... which is fine as well, food for yabbies/goldfishes...

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[dazzabozza]

Well I am pretty sure there was no Aquaponics category when I first joined. Anyways since it is here now, I will show you our first aquaponics system.

Hey Ivan

You have your "other half" to thank for that. She noticed a few threads about aquaponics in various areas of the forum and suggested it. I've now included it as part of the Pond, Outdoor section.

It seems that with the current "Eco-climate" and "Go Green" schemes being promoted by the govt lately is setting a trend for systems such as aquaponics. There's some spirited gardeners / veggie growers here so what not join the 2 hobbies! Den has a nice setup here - http://www.perthcich...showtopic=22243

I personally would like to see better use of my waste water when doing my aquarium water changes. Seems like a perfect way to do so.

Nice setup you have BTW!


Daz

[Ivan Sng]

I see... so I was right that there was never an Aquaponics category...

Thanks Daz... Notice that I labelled it the "First"... I built a second smaller system and am planning for the Third...

Yes, water changes from the aquarium are a waste of good nutrient rich water... dumping it away and then going to the nursery/bunnings to buy fertilizer for the garden... Personally if I dump any water, I dump them into garden beds, pots, etc...

I am planning to have some wicking beds in my garden shortly... (just in case, wicking beds are like garden beds except that it stores water using a pond liner or somewhat hence using much less water...) and what I intend to do is to drain my aquarium water into these wicking beds during water changes...

Not sure what Den has got but I will take a closer look later...

[thefishdummy]

Thought of sharing more photos about our aquapoics system..

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[Cawdor]

Looks great, I was toying with the idea of converting a garden fountain to part of an aquaponic system. Do you think ~450L is large enough for a couple of banks of plants?

[golden_dase]

Hi

Great set up!

In 2 of your yabbie pics, you have dates 4th Dec & 17th Dec. Is that to show the growth of the yabbies in approx 2 weeks?
If that's the case, I'm going to change my plans to a mini yabby-farm instead of a fish-pond! ha!


Cheers!
Kevin

[Ivan Sng]

Looks great, I was toying with the idea of converting a garden fountain to part of an aquaponic system. Do you think ~450L is large enough for a couple of banks of plants?

Well the concept of aquaponics is to typically have growbeds filled with gravel for filtration. There's no need for other form of filtration. And generally it is recommended to have at least 1:1 ratio. So in your case, a 450L growbed would be good... similar to aquarium, more bio-filtration the better, so twice as much growbeds would be good, but then you start getting into issues of the water level since to fill a 450L growbed you will need about half the volume of water.

Having said that, the size of the growbed is also driven by how much fish you want to have... general rule of thumb is 3kg of fish per 100L of filtration. This should be taken as the final grow out weigh of the fish since the fishes are likely to grow at the same rate so if you wish to harvest your fish at 500gms, then a maximum of 6 fishes per 100L... and if you don't wish to harvest fishes, then just keep minimum fishes... you will be surprised that even with a light stocking level, the nitrates will still be good for plant growth.

[Ivan Sng]

Hi

Great set up!

In 2 of your yabbie pics, you have dates 4th Dec & 17th Dec. Is that to show the growth of the yabbies in approx 2 weeks?
If that's the case, I'm going to change my plans to a mini yabby-farm instead of a fish-pond! ha!


Cheers!
Kevin

No... it is more like the baby yabbies are the offsprings of the bigger size yabbies... they don't grow that quickly, probably will be ready
next year... best growing time for yabbies is during the hotter months.

The thing with yabbies is that you can only get about 10 adult yabbies per 1m2 of surface area... what they need is surface area, so even if you have
a few hundred baby yabbies, they will sort themselves out (killing each other) until they are about 10 adult per 1m2... sad but the reality...

[Cawdor]

Thanks for the advice Ivan, I'm looking forward to planning and setting it up!

[golden_dase]

Yes, thanks for the info Ivan!

I'm more into a "backyard fish farm" than an Aquaponics system....
Lets' say for example I got this tank: http://www.tankmaste...oductID=AT1000E
What sort of fish (edible) do you think will be suitable and how many etc..?

I remember you mentioned "trout" in one of my threads, so what size tank do you think will be suitable?

Cheers again!
Kevin

[Ivan Sng]

Hi Kevin,

As explained in my answer to Cawdor, how much fish you can keep is determined by how much filtration you have. For a 1000L tank, I think you can comfortably fit 50 adult size trout (500gms) but you will need an equivalent of a 1000L of filtration. If you are considering using pond filters, bear in mind that, these filters are usually meant for pond setups, so the rated filtration capacity may not be sufficient for your backyard fish farm setup since you will be feeding the fishes lots to achieve the maximum growth rates. For trouts, it is typically 1% of body weight of food per day. So 100 gms trout, get 1 gm of food per day multiply by the number of fishes...

You will need to make sure that the bio-filtration is sufficient since you will only find out you have an issue when the fishes have grown to huge adult sizes and by then it may be many months ahead... the worst thing to have is to come back one day finding out your fishes have all died because of high ammonia and nitrite reading due to insufficient bio-filtration.

IMO, you should consider aquaponics since water changes will become a big part of your weekly chores... Just to give you an idea, my system is only stocked to half the capacity, 1000L tank with 1000L growbeds and 20 barras. My nitrates is constantly at 40ppm with plants growing, not well but growing...... without plants, your nitrates may be quite high requiring weekly water changes... 10%-20% of 1000L?? Quite a bit of water there...

Ivan.

[golden_dase]

Thanks again for the in-depth information.

1 more question...

Regarding the "reticulation" side of things, is the water pump being run 24/7? Or is it on a timer to pump water only a couple of hours a day?

Sorry for all the questions, but i'm quite intrigued with Aquaculture (backyard) and the idea that you can "grow" your own food-fish...

[Cawdor]

Kevin, from what I have seen at an aquaponics place in Gosnells, they run the pumps for 10 minutes each hour by timer. That was for 1000L+ setups.

[golden_dase]

Thanks Tim!

This settles it! When I move into the new place next week, I'm going to try my hand at Aquaponics (building my own)!
Spent the last few hours reading up on the systems and I'm very impressed!

Thanks Ivan for bringing up such a great topic!

Kev.

[Ivan Sng]

No worries... always happy to share a topic that helps...

The pumping cycle really depends on your system setup. If you have siphons (bell siphons, etc), you run your pumps constantly. If you use a stand-pipe, and you use timer. The timer use is actually 15mins on 45mins off to suit those cheap mechanical timers that sell everywhere...

The only thing that it comes down to is, you will need to find a water pump with the capacity to turnover 1 entire volume of tank water in one hour within that 15mins the pump is running... also remember that the flow rating on the pond pump are at zero head, and in almost all setups, you will need to pump the water to a certain height so your flow rating reduces... IMO, if you use a timer setup with standpipe for a 1000L tank, you will need a minimum of 3000LPH pump. 4500LPH is better since you can connect up a bypass line and push water back into the tank to create a swirl effect for current and also help to stirup shit to be sucked out of the tank...

If you have not gone to
http://www.backyarda...orum/portal.php , I would suggest you go there and have a read of the forum... lots and lots of information... will certainly occupy you for a while...

Welcome to the world of Aquaponics...

[thefishdummy]

Welcome to World of Aquaponics ... world where your addictive start

[MrOrange]

I've got a 4 x 500L GB, 3000L FishTank and 1000L SumpTank system. Also a BYAP member.

Looking forward to the trout season

All water changes from my indoor FT's go to the patio plants / pots or into the 1000L ST. I use a water changing device that connects onto the 30m garden hose so they drain straight into the sump.

Unlike aquariums, I need as many nitrates as I can get my hands on in AP.

Ivan your system looks nice! Some shade would really kick it off.

[thefishdummy]

More Aquaponics Planting Development.
Some intro here, there are watermelon, rockmelon n wong bok
(and yes 1 wong bok = 1 wheel barrow of veggie)

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[golden_dase]

You don't look very happy with your harvest, Ivan!

[thefishdummy]

Actually he just awake only...