Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Owning a swimming pool is one thing but maintaining it is a totally different ball game.Unless you have an automatic pool cleaner, you need to manually vacuum your pool.Use a manual brush and pool vacuum on all areas of the walls and floor at least once a week.

Or put fish in it!!!!
No more vacuuming or chemicals.....the reward is fish to eat!

I turned my 50,000 liter pool into a pond a few years ago. First step was to gradually get a lot of water turned over to reduce the salt levels to something fish could survive in. Then I just added a dozen comet goldfish and a dozen 5cm Koi and let nature take over. Pool pump has been kaput for the past year and I haven't fixed it. First couple years I got huge algae blooms through summer due to the pond being in full sun and full of nutrients with no chemicals or salt in it, but that seemed to help the fish to grow as they had plenty to eat and the water was at that time still being kept well circulated by the pool pump. I would think pea soup algae and no pump would cause the fish to suffocate.
I've now had my pond for about 4 years and it still isn't clear. I would think without filtration and some way to remove nutrients it would never really clear up, because there will always be some level of free floating algae.

I'm now thinking of turning the whole thing into a big aquaponics system by surrounding the whole pond area with 200ltr blue drums cut in half and filled with expanded clay. I estimate that if I cut them into tops and bottoms instead of the usual two sides I can fit enough around the area to provide about 4000 ltrs of filtration and about 8 sq meters of growing surface. If I split the drums the other way I get 100% less filtration but only extent the growing area by 50% . I think this system might clear the whole thing up to a point were it is once again fit to get wet in on a hot day, though I think I'd still keep my head above water.
Maybe I should start my own thread on this and see what everybody thinks I should do.