Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is a modified version of barrelponics - no barrels, but the same flood tank design. It is built on a 325-gallon goldfish-koi pond that I dug about 4 years ago. It had (and still has) a 30-gallon lava rock biofilter feeding a small waterfall, which seemed to be adequate for the fish's needs. So I was unsure if adding a couple of growbeds was going to work - whether there would be enough nutrients. There are about 30 goldfish of various sizes up to probably a bit more than a pound (I started out with 10 feeder goldies, at 10 for a dollar) and 4 koi, two of which are quite large - a couple pounds or more. So I added the two growbeds - in truth I was getting concerned that the fish had enough filtration, though they showed no signs of stress - which drain back into the pond. Maybe 20 or 25 gallons each? I don't know. They are somewhere around 18 by 40 inches, filled 18 inches deep with pea gravel. Here's a shot of it freshly planted - maybe overplanted? - about 6 weeks ago.

So I quickly found out that nutrients were probably not a problem. In addition to the tomatoes and peppers you can see, there are cucumbers and beans from seed. Here they are a couple weeks later, thriving as you can see.

And here's why I say I maybe overplanted. The beans are shading out some of the tomatoes, and the tomatoes are shading out everything else. Got a little carried away. Here they are this last weekend, about 6 weeks after planting.

Now, this is my first aquaponics system, and from reading some of the forums I realize I probably broke a number of rules or conventions. And I have some questions, if anyone wants to help me out a bit. One is, what the hell do I do about bugs? Obviously can't spray anything toxic - which I wouldn't do anyway - but the flea beetles ate my promising crop of arugula in no time at all. I've been picking off tomato hornworms and throwing them in the pond for the fish, but it's hard to get them all. The fish don't really like them, either; they must taste bad. There's always one that will eat them, but only the ones who haven't eaten them before: once they have one, they ignore them from then on. No problem with caterpillars of other colors, though.
Also, I read on here somewhere about putting worms in the growbeds. I didn't think of that, and it seems like they'd drown. Should I try it? What kind of worms? Would regular earthworms out of the ground work?

Here are some of the fish. I don't plan to eat them.

I have never tested the water. Everything seems to be working fine; should I be worried about it?

Hi BG - welcome to the forum.

+1 on the worms...as I leaned, they won't drown. They breathe through there skin and there is enough oxygen in the system to keep them happy.

Bugs - ya - the age old question. How to get rid of them. The only thing efective against horn worms will be your fingers - unless you are lucky enough to get a horm worm wasp in your area. Predatory bugs (lady bugs) are what most people use to keeps the pests down.

Being in Texas I would not worry to much about the plants shading each other...it gets so hot here, most plants actually want some shade.

I just had a tought about the tomato horn worm. Tomato leaves are actually poisoness. It might be after the fish take a bite they do not feel so well...might be best off not to feed it to them.

Welcome to the forum!

Oh yes on the worms. Red Wigglers are what is recomended - but the regular redish brown worms we have in texas would be fine. Just don't get nightcrawlers from the bait shop as they will not help.

Good Luck and keep the pictures comming!

Koi and goldfish are herbivoirs although they will occaisionally eat bugs. Add a couple blue gills to the system and they will gobble up hornworms, lizards and anything else that falls in the water, problem is they don't always play well with others.
The red wigglers are by far the best/fastest at reducing materials to compost so it is really worth it to get them. Earth worms somehow managed to get in my barrel system maybe from in the root ball of a transplant or a bird but they seem to manage to get in.

Thanks for the input on the worms, Deja and Bill. I'll throw some in. They should help with the drainage, no? The gravel is already getting clogged with fish poop and tomato roots.

As for the sunlight issue, the shade provided by the taller plants would probably be fine if the system were in full sun all day long, but it's partially shaded by some trees, in early morning and late afternoon, so it really only gets about 4 hours of full sun, in the middle of the day. The toms are rather leggy as a result; the supports I put up are 8 feet tall, and the beans are already past the top, looping around to start a second climb, and the tomatoes are more than halfway up. I'll need a ladder to pick them.

Welcome to the forum Batty

Your shade problem with sort itself out in time and you will find what works in your set up. Don't try to do it all in one day, that is part of the fun.

I can see another fish tank being added to this system just to have some carnivourous fish for the hornworm problem. Its amazing just how quickly it grows. A small, simple wywtem one day then the next another addition and next it just keeps growing. All part of the fun.

The clogging you are seeing might be helped a bit by the worms but you probably have far more fish pond than you have grow beds and the small grow beds may have difficulty keeping up with the solids from the pond. This is a big part of why people either recommend large amounts of grow beds or solids removal. Anyway, since you are using a flush tank, you might just add a basket or something to catch most of the larger debris that get past your pump and see if that helps you out any, the basket can then be cleaned out regularly. Just set the basket so that if it clogs and overflows, the water just goes into the flush tank anyway rather than clogging the flow or overflowing out of the system.

Whatever composting worms that are easily available to you should work well in the grow beds. They seem to love living in flood and drain gravel beds.

You can use Thuricide against the caterpillars, just be careful not to spray when it's gonna be over 80 F shortly after spraying cause it can burn the plants if sprayed mid morning on a scorcher of a day like you are probably getting this time of year. When I was needing to spray it, I often had to do it at dusk. Thuricide is a product that works against leaf eating caterpillars by giving them a bacterial infection that only affects caterpillars. Often referred to as BT but there are several types of BT that work on different pests. Like mosquito dunks that work against mosquito larva or milky spore that works against grubs. Thuricide I've seen around here but there is also a version called dipel, just read the lables to make sure it is only useful against caterpillars since you don't want something that might be toxic to beneficial bugs or your fish.

One thing I have noticed in my system is that there are very few bugs in the AP one. I have found a couple catapillars, but no stink bugs yet. Lots of bee activity a few fruit fly like things but that is about it. The dirt garden is about 100 ft away and loaded with leaf leg bugs. I put sevin on the other day and that got the little ones, but still tons of big ones (I need a dust buster). About 50 ft away in a pot I had brussel sprouts that got a really bad aphid infestation... It is almost like the dirt ones are becomming sacraficial and prefered by the pests over AP. Where did I read today about planting sacraficial sunflowers some distance away?

Hey, a basket in the flood tank is a good idea. I've already got a couple hanging there so that they get flooded when the water level is at its highest, with some basil and parsley in them. Be no problem to rig another one to catch the solids.

Yeah, I'm already thinking of how to expand the system. A NFT pipe system is on the back burner, and a lower pond connected to the existing one by a nice burbling stream would be appealing... to the gf, that is, who otherwise would frown on any more fish. Wondering if I could put some tilapia in the second pond, and keep them separated from the koi, though they'd share the water? The tilapia would be seasonal, since it gets too cold here in the winter for them. Or catfish....

The expansion bug has hit another poor victim

Catfish are probably a better option BG... So much simpler when you can leave them in there if need be.