Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What a surprise - the status has changed from RED ("over my dead body") to amber ("perhaps ..." with conditions attached)


Time to start getting some ideas from you good folk.
I've only got 2 photos to show you (I'm about 3000km away from the house and not able to take any more pics at the moment) and I'll list of a few of the "conditions". The reality is that I couldn't start work until about April 2011 once a few other jobs are done, so that gives me plenty of time to get the plans sorted.

Looks about the right size for a decent sump tank:)

Some of the "conditions" include:

* wife still wants to swim, but is happy to have space to do exercise and cool off, not laps. wants 1/3 of the pool for her, shallow end

* doesnt want any fish in her area (although if a couple of goldies slipped in there I dont think it would be a problem

* pool fence must move closer to the pool so that more of the backyard is available for kids and pedestrians

* must look OK

*I will have to write quotes for the conversion, and also compare running costs with running the pool as it is

* wife wants to keep the rite to add more conditions


After thinking about it for a couple of years I've had a few ideas, but I'm writing this thread to get your ideas and see what happens.

The pool measures 31 feet x 13 feet - I think that's about 10m x 4m??? Adds up to about 60000 litres. I am currently running a dimateous earth filter + salt chlorinator with a 1hp pump. This could be modified or completly tossed.

I dont care if I run siphons, timer or any configuration you come up with ...

Is it concrete? If so could you empty it and put in concrete deviders to section the pool. I tossed the idea around with my pool. Its fibre glass so I decided to just use the whole space. But concrete, all you have to do is drill and add reo and mesh form it up and fill and seal. Have 3 or more parts.

On the bio filter side for large volume I'd go with a ABF(airlift bio filter) then the gb's can add to this. I run a ratio of 9 to 1 ish(water to media). If you devide the pool one could be put into a small section and move water and add o2.

Yes it is concrete

My wife wants a pool. I was wondering how seasonal your pool use is, like for us it's not warm enough to swim but solidly in June, July, and August. So would it be feasible to raise fish in the cold parts of the year then drain it and clean it, and use it as a pool only in the warm months? I expect cleaning it would be a chore and the fish poo could stain the tiles or something...

Might be okay if you run it as a natural pool.

Yep I think those are da bomb, but I suspect the DW wouldn't like to swim with fish in the pool.

With all of those conditions and more to come I would ditch the missus and use the whole pool
But concrete dividers would be the go, that should leave you around 40,000lts which would = a lot of GB's, is a salt chlorinator just salt or chlorine as well (I have NFI, I'm a Country Boy ) forum member dbird did similar I will pm him and get him to see what he can add, but are you going for goldies only or some edible fish, Koonacs, similar to yabbie but yummier will live in salty dams and also black bream, pity about the trout thing over your way as would be ideal, running costs will probably go up as more pumping needed, are you going to filter both bits together, would be impractical to have a flow through divider I feel, unless your wife doesn't mind swimming in fish crap as well, but i do see a challenge happening, good luck

Dave - my wife swims for about 5 months in an unheated pool, I swim for about 5 days but do all of the work + maintainence. I have heard of some people around here who put trout in the pool over winter. I dont think they have to empty the pool, just run the pump alot and dose with chemicals.

Nocky - wife was still happy until she read your comment about swimming with fish poo, now she's not so sure. I tried telling her its just like the other day swimming in Karijini National Park, plenty of fish + poo in those rivers. My aim in this conversion is to have food production, but there would be plenty of room for some ornamentals (goldfish, water lillies) as well. I dont want it to be just a "natural swimming pool", I want an AP system that you can swim in. Therefore the filter/growbed design must keep this in mind. There is a reasonable amount of space that I can use either as a sectioned off area of the pool or around 2 sides.

If you had one of those pool auto vacuums that crawl around on the bottom with the pump suction that would kinda keep the fish poo in check along with all the midge larva.

Hi everyone ,
you can read about my experience with pool water by checking my thread ,Don goes bananas down south and high amo levels in the water.
From my experience the fish will do alright in the pool but the plants will all die.The other thing that I have found out since that episode was that strawberrys are the least tolerant of salt than any other plant and it was strawberrys that I tried but then on the other hand when used pool water last year everthing died so I don't think it is a good idea.
There is one other thing that you will have to take into account before you pump your pool out is that if you have ground water level above the level of the bottom of your pool the pool can become a boat and rise up and the dirt will go under it and if you can get the water level down the pool won't sink back down so you will need to check that one out first.If you get a good creepy crawly or what ever you want to call them it would be good for keeping the poo off the bottom but the one I had used to get stuck in the corners all the time so it got moved on.I had to pump the pool out to catch the fish and shovel the crap out.I have been told that I am never to put fish in the pool again.
Cheers,Don.

Remind her that the fish shit in all the rivers and dams that we get the water we shower in... and our drinking water...

Then tell her that AP systems probably filter the water as well as any town water system supply.... and that there's no chance of e-coli from warm blooded creatures getting into the AP water....

Humm... unless you swim in it I suppose...

Fish don't only crap in it the also *frack* in as well when it comes ( ) down to that