aquaponics

[seant]

Greetings to all. Has anyone had much to do with aquaponics, I'm thinking of a large splash pool with fish in it and the the water filtered through grow beds so no need for chemicals. The idea is to collect rain water in the fish tank as a storage instead of a jojo tank on the side of the house, with the added bonus of growing a few fish and vegetables.

[DeepBass9]

I have a system, but in all honesty it is much easier to grow vegetables in the ground. The fish do well though, Tilapia in a concrete dam inside a tunnel. I'm not sure which area you are in, but Tilapia will die under 10 degrees, and only really grow above 30 degrees. Carp (goldfish) don't mind the cold though. 

Edited July 5, 2018 by DeepBass9

[DeepBass9]

Actually the growbeds are used more as a biofilter more than anything else. The water to growbed ratio should be more like 1:1 in a true aquaponics system. As it is though it works well for my purposes. The thermal mass of the water prevents the temperature from getting too cold at night in winter, so I can raise seedlings all year round, and then in summer the fish grow quite rapidly, and breed without any intervention on my part.

[seant]

Thanks. How big is you tank? And how many fish roughly do you stock ?

[DeepBass9]

That dam is about 8000l. No idea how many fish are in there  (too murky), but we pull out 8 or 10, 500g fish every few months in summer, and throw back a lot of small ones. The controls on fish growth are temperature, oxygenation and food. The oxygenation is not that good so I could probably get better growth if I put in a bigger pump.

Edited July 5, 2018 by DeepBass9