Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am a newbie.
First I copy my entry in the New Member Interdiction.

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Hi everyone,

I am Sejin in Adelaide.

Finally joined membership in order to introduce myself, meet other Adelaide people, and ask some questions even though I have been reading forums for several weeks

I recently moved into a new house in a place called Lochiel Park, so called a Green Village.
http://www.lochielpark.com.au/lochielpark/home.htm
More about it some other time.

Discovered aquaponics only about three weeks ago, and seems like I am now hooked.

I have been searching for an idea for my small, court yard garden (about 50m2) in the new house in the Green Village. The idea has been evolving from a "healing garden" with water features, combined with flower and vegetable plots, to a vertical garden, then to an edible vertical garden, and now, to aquaponics garden.

My starting point is that, hoping to have something like koys, I already built a beautiful pond, but have now filled with 30 gold fishes. But my idea has changed to aquaponics.

I am now at a stage of considering the overall structure, mainly the type and position of grow bed in relation to the existing pond (about 5 metre long, 1 metre wide, half a meter deep underground, and another half above ground). The main idea for this garden is to build a "healing garden", combining aesthetically beautiful conservatory like garden with food production. This healing garden idea will be probably what differentiates my system from others'. But I need help from all of you on technical matters. In return I promise to report on the progress of my system.

I still do not yet have the system, and am at the stage of toying with various options.

Since my garden is very small and the pond structure is there already, I am thinking of having grow beds to fit above the pond, either by building or buying them. Am thinking of either 3 metre long or full 5 metre long. Any comment or suggestion is welcome.

Since I will be talking about my system, I will start an entry in the member system and attach some pictures so that you can visualise my garden better. You can start your comments on my system in my entry in the member system.

Sejin

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Here are some pictures:
[Work in progress.]

Hi Sejin and welcome yes you are hooked now, from here its all forward
You have a beaut start with the pond
As for your beds they can be 20 ft or so away from the pond [as long as you can get them high enough to drain back to the pond if they are a lot higher you will need a strong pump ]
I have seen beds 50 ft away from the water just pump it up and run it back
you will need to feed your goldfish better food than gf flakes

That looks great.

How much more or your backyard are you thinking of using?

Did you build your pond yourself?

Thanks for welcome, Food&Fish.

Being from Asian ethnic background, I have been feeding my gold fishes mostly leftover rice, and occasionally some peas. I bought pellet food, but I wonder whether it is necessary.
What to feed fish is an issue that I would like to explore more. Only in developed countries, pets are fed commercial food. I wonder whether this is necessary and desirable from a sustainability point of view.

BullwinkleII: I am planning to buy or build grow beds to fit the pond, to be located directly above pond, about 90 cm so that I can still enjoy looking at the pond. There is not much choice for location of grow beds since my garden is very small. I wonder where I can get large grow beds in Adelaide.

The best place to buy grow beds is from the the people who make this forum.

They have a shop here If they have the correct shape for what you need, the grow beds are here.

Another option might be stock troughs (for feed and water for farm animals) that you might find where ever people sell farming equipment. These are long and thin, so might suit your design.

The need for good quality food comes from the need for all the trace elements and minerals that the the plants need. If you feed your fish only rice and food scraps, after a while the plants might suffer. You can fix this with a few additives that supply trace elements but most people prefer to feed their fish a quality feed.

Everyone will help you when you need it if your plants show signs of problems, so I wouldn't worry too much for now, but just keep it in mind. A lot will depend on what kind of scraps they get.

Put a lot of photos in this thread, and always talk about your plans so that people can point out any problems before they happen.

I have drawn a tentative conceptual diagram of my system for myself.
It may not be easy for others to understand, but I put it up since I would like to show it for any comment. It will become clearer in time.

Basically my pond is there first, then I am building the main grow bed on top of the pond. I wondered whether I should build in two levels since the main grow bed is rather tall. The bottom one may grow something that does not require much direct sun.

Surrounding the pond, I may have many towers.
I also have some shelves on the left side of pond, the top shelf may be used for smaller grow beds. Water will be pumped up than flow down by gravity.

I have decided to use metal shelves for stand. As for the main grow bed, I will choose either a commercial one or make a wooden with lining one myself.

After some soul searching, I have chose metal shelves from Bunnings as grow bed stands.
90 cm x 60 cm in area and 90cm high, but adjustable shelves.

A set of two is cheaper than a BYAP stand and can accomodate the the largest BYAP grow bed.

I had a raised garden in mind even before coming across aquaponics.

Vertical garden and wall garden are natural concepts for a small space garden. Raised garden for me is a related concept. But in my situation, there is another reason to have garden raised: it is winter shade from my neighbour's hotwater solar panels. The houses in this semi-dence, eco-village are designed in such a way use of sun light is maximized. The width of my backyard, which is the distance between my house and my neibougher is specified in such a way winter sun is not blocked for my living room and a good paart of my backyard.

However, my neighbour put up solar hotwater panels on their ground floor roof in such a way its shade comes 2 metres inside my living room with has 12 metre wide windows. This matter has been under dispute: I had requested my neighbour to move the panels back and lower angle so that there will be no shading for my living room in winter. My neighobur agreed but even if this modification were carried out, there would be shading in the ground level of my backyard.

In order to have a vegie garden, there is no other way then having the garden raised, and not by 30-40cm but at least a metre. My pond has a raised wall which is designed to be seatable height (same as a chair height). This is 47cm. The shelve that I place on top of the pond seat is 90cm high. If the grow bed is 30cm high, the the base level for plant will become 167 cm above ground. This height may be too high for comfortable work on grow bed even if one can stand on seat. Moreover, one cannot see the vegetable growing with ease. Fortunately, the metal shelve is adjustable and I can put grow bed at 60cm height level of shelve. This will make the top of grow bed (which is the base level of vegie) same as the top of the shelve. That is 90 + 47 = 137cm above ground. This would be a nice height visually and for work.

But there are some other issues to consider.

My starting point was to build a "healing" garden where one can find peace of mind and get healed, but the idea of aquaponics and raised grow bed, and the choice of metal shelve are making my garden beginning to look like a vegie factory. Of course, I want the aquaponic system work and become very productive, but I would not want it look like a factory, even a neat looking one like a Toyota production system. I will have to cover most of metal parts of the garden with green. The fence area may be covered by ornamental plants in the form of "living wall" made of various interesting plants and flowers. I hope the metal shelves may also be covered by a series of longish pots.

I began to buy metal shelves while my wife has been overseas.
I wonder what she will say when she is back in a couple of days.

Any comment and/or idea welcome.

For the first time, I got fishes for aquaponics purpose.
30 silver perches.
They are so small, about half of them less than 2cm long.
It appears that they still do not know how to feed themselves even through this ability must be in their DNA.
When I sprinkle food particles, they are not interested.
Water gets a bit unclear within a day, so they must be having poo.
But they do not look like, at least to me, they are eating.
I wonder whether they will grow then.

this is going to sound strange but did your neighbour consulate with you about the Solar hot water system..

If is impacts on your sun.. it is illegal..
[Sorry I worked on a Building that had to be designed in such a way that it did not impact on Solar gain.. of the house's in the area..]

Sorry no one has the right to steal sunlight..

Juergen

No, they did not consult me, and it was a big surprise for me when it was built.
My building was being constructed and I did not live there at the time.
One day, it was up.

They were trying to be safe from the shade from a two story building North of their house and put their solar panels as south as possible. They were so preoccupied with their solar efficiency that they did not think of the impact on my house.

It will cost money to move their panels, but they havve agreed to move just enough to avoid shade inside my living room. But still leaves shade on garden.
Moreover, this dispute has been ongoing for many months, and I am not sure whether they will carry out what they agreed to.

In preparation for setting up an aquaponics system, I tried experimenting with several forms of water based vegie garden.
1] floating raft on fish pond,
2] some vegies on a plastic container with grow media, not connected to flowing water, but pond water given.
A picture is attached for the second type.

The result for four weeks of growing this way is worse than even growth in soil.
In comparision to the results the grow that I see in well functioning aquaponic grow beds, there is hardly working. My question is "why?"

It is apparent that pond water does not have enough nutirents.
Possible reasons?
1] Pond is large (over 4000L) and 30 gold fishes do not have much effect.
2] pond filter cleans water and water clarifier also reduce nutrients for vegie growing.

The reason 1 will change as fish number is increased as fishes grow.
But I am not sure about the reason 2: If the filter and water clarifier that I use take away nutirents in return to keeping water clean, this is no good for aquaponics.

So, I need assistance of people who have knowledge about this issue.

Specification for my pond pump-filter-clarifier setup:
1] Pump: Oase Aquamax 5500 (5500L/hr)
2] Filter: Oase Bio Smart Filter (5500L/hr)
3] UVC Clarifier: Oase Bitron UVC Clarifier 55C (max 30,000 L / hr)

Some explanation about the clarifier found in the creative pump website:
http://www.creativepumps.com.au/zpumps/ ... ifiers.htm



Allows beneficial bacteria to grow?
So, I can keep my pump/filter/clarifier running on top of the normal aquaponics system set up? It will keep my pond super clearn, but no negative effect for vegie growing if alreaedy cleaned pond water is used for vegie garden?

Please share your wisdom with me.

I dont know what the filter does, but you should test your water and find out what levels of nutrient there are. If you dont have a [url]freshwater test kit[/url] It's really worth getting one.

When you start an aquaponics system it can take up to 6 weeks to get the bacteria growing in your grow bed that convet fish poo to plant food. Ammonia to nitrites, to nitrates

And when you first plant seedlings, there is a time when they spend all thir energy making roots, then they put all their energy into leaves and fruit, so sometimes it looks like nothing is happening

When you first get new fish the dont eat until they settle in. And small fish only eat a tiny amount, so they might be eating other things growing in the pond.

If the fish look happy and are swimming around normally, they will probably be ok because you have a lot of water.

1.How long has the pond been running with fish in it?

2.How much food are you feeding them each day?

3.Do you have a test kit, and if so what readings do you see?

If the metal shelving is in the water, it might harm your fish. in the photo it looks like half of the shelving legs are in the water. You can paint it with a product for fish ponds.... I think it's called gripset 51, but you need to be very careful about putting anything metal in your fish tank.

There are some interesting ways to make vertical gardens, and with the space you have, vertical might be the way to go. You could grow a garden against your back wall, which would look nice, and grow more permanent things in a large container of grow media on the left (when standing in your house) to filter the water. The container on the left could be wrapped in cane matting or something to keep to the healing garden design. I wouldn't take much to keep it looking rally good, but still able to filter the water and produce a lot of food.