Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Since the last post here things have changed a lot in the little system, it turned very green and not much growth but now things have taken off, added a bit of shade also now have 12 mussels in tank plus 10 Pygmy Perch a few striped minnows and 6 goldies, will get a better picture of the fish soon but the one below shows crystal clear water, I think the Mussels and minnows have cleaned it up out of site and in the little grow bed apple mint has gone ballistic, easy to grow I know.
I am now going to incorporate some of the theories of the bathtub system into my soon to come 6000lt system, it is a 2 x 3000lt tank system that will be connected at the bottom, one tank will house my marron, Pygmy Perch, Mussels, water bugs, Glass shrimp basically a home made eco system which I have working well in a 2000lt tank as well but minus the minnows and not enough mussels. The second tank will be edible fish either Redfin or Silvers to start, I am starting with 2 x 500lt GB's (the money tree is stressed a bit after that ) and will pump out of fish tank and drain into eco tank, the main idea being what the lack of GB's misses the eco tank will sort out, I like my exotic native fish and have seen the live in natural soaks without pumps, filters etc and still have crystal clear water so why can't these natural things be incorporated into AP, I will have some 19mm mesh in the tank connecting pipe but still some of the little eco creatures will wander into the fish side but this will be a good source of additional food, will it work as expected? hopefully! but I expect some teething problems, some die hard conventional APers (sorry Rupe) will no doubt say it won't work but these things have to be tried
Have poly tanks, and have to get up to BYAP to get GB's etc but hopefully get started beginning of February, the tanks I have are the same as forum member Rick, BYAP are similarly priced but the freight would have killed me (sorry Joel) but for city folk BYAP is the place to go

seems that millie is thirsty

yes C! have 4 of those and due to the 40c+ temp they have taken to drinking from the pond, will get a pic this evening of them all

Took some better photo's of a clear tank, we cant believe how clear it became after a few additions of mussels etc, as mentioned some of the idea's used in the small system will be incorporated into the 6000lt system, I saw my 2 tanks arrive in town the other day so after holiday at end of month (Off to Albany ) off to BYAP to get GB's etc, and then stand by for my new thread to be called....................NFI maybe Nocky's Disaster!! (I hope Not, She will kill me if it doesn't work )
Now for the Pic's, the fish are obviously Goldies, and you can see a couple of Pygmy Perch (the big small fish) and the smaller fish are stripped minnows and look very carefully you can see at least 2 mussels, the chooks are obviously.........dead if they crap in the tank

Did she dye her hair.....

No just smoking something I think rupe

been a while since we updated this one, pond is still as clear as above pictures and Blackberry has grown over shade and also covered the whole back wall of the shed, blocked the drain hole so tackled unblocking that on the weekend and have a fair bit of missing skin from the fingers and a few thorns as well, but should be fine for another year, goldies are easily double the size of above, maybe pics this arvo