Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all

When I was in Amsterdam, I noticed that they had set up rafts in their canals that floated on the water. They had plants in the rafts and were using them to detox the heavy metals and chemicals, so that ducks could use the water and have a place for nesting.

I have a pretty big dam that gets a fair bit of wind on it for aeration and will soon (in January) have 100 sleepy cod fingerlings. The dam holds 40-50 megalitres, so the amount of fish providing amonia is tiny, but I imagine there will be other dead things in there to do the job.

I was wondering if it would be possible to grow vegies and plants on the raft.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

gav

What sort of plants were they growing on the Dutch rafts?.... reeds??

Doubt that you'll have enough nitrates in your dam for vege growth...

And nature will probably pop up other more natural growing things that would compete.

Hi Rupert

Not sure about the plant types, but have attached a photo if that helps...it might be a bit far away though.

There's been mention before as to watercress and wasabi ....

Edited :

Or maybe even water chestnuts....

Not sure how any of them would grow unattended and with only a small number of fingerlings in a large volume of water....

Let us know if you research it further.

Thanks Rupert...will do.

Also hoping one of the Dutch members might know about the plants and setup.

Cheers

gav

PS: Kang Kung (not sure of spelling) or water spinach might work as well

I think I'm still the only Dutch member on here, and I'm afraid I didn't know anything about this.



Edit: found a couple of things on some Dutch websites:

They call it 'floatlands'; basically a floating ornamental garden, which also serves to create a more natural environment for animals. Also, they attract mussels which also filter the water. Apparantly there's over a hundred floatlands in Amsterdam. They're usually planted by volunteers or houseboat owners. Sometimes they're used to compensate sewage dumped into the canals from houseboats.

The plants are probably helophytes like bulrush, cane, arrowhead, watercress etc. but I can't tell from the picture which ones they used on that floating type. Sometimes they don't plant them at all and let nature do it for them (takes longer, though).

Floatlands are also called floating 'helophytefilters' in Dutch (Dutch wiki). Helophytefilters are used to get rid of nitrates and improve water quality.

Thanks heaps for the info Thomas.

Maybe they aren't suited for dam, unless I had heaps of fish, which might cause a few other problems.

All the best

gav