Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey all,
Ive just started a permaculture design course and I am redesigning my little backyard. One option I have would be to excavate a garden bed in order to turn it into a pond and then i could stock it with silver perch with grow beds above aquaponic style. Along the lines of permaculture I might then look at getting two ducks. Would Silver perch eat their droppings? I dont want to get ducks unless they can really benefit the ecosystem and i can take proper care of their needs. i have read the permaculture thread but wonder is there anyone out there who actually HAS ducks or is considering them for their aquaponic system? I dont want to bite off more than i can chew.
Cheers,
Aeon

G'day Aeon,

I thought long and hard about having ducks as a part of my system. I now have five ducks, and since having them have decided not to use them.

Ducks will poop when in the water, but being ducks they squirt their poo out, so as soon as it hits the water it dissolves....it may help algae to grow which the fish might eat?

Also, I think Joel mentioned this in another thread somewhere on the net, the ducks would disturbed the fish with their constant thrashing about in the water.....I'm thinking you would need a large pond...or at least an area you could stop the ducks accessing.

My ducks are muscovies, so are quite big. Maybe a small breed of duck might suit? I certainly think it's worth your effort to look further into. I picked muscovies for their meat.

Will be interesting to see how you go.

Mike

The permaculture farm I was renting this time last year had 20 odd ducks, but did not have a pond. The owner, Derek Greenwood, is very well known for his permaculture practices and runs tours on the island here of his different properties showing how permaculture techniques can be applied to a wide range of practices from bank and cliff stabilisation to rainforest regeneration. The permaculture mantra of using each resource to its highest value, when applied to the ducks, ultimately meant they ended up as food, but their primary role was insect and weed control in the orchard, which they did with varying degrees of success. A low fence was built around his orchard and the ducks were allowed to free range around the orchard as a flock (we don't have any predators like foxes here). I asked him why he didn't have water for them and his response was that ducks do not need water and when they do have it they stir it up and create such unfavourable conditions that they become a liability instead of a asset. The tanks to provide water were there for them, but instead of filling them with water for the ducks he filled it with soil, placed it near the septic tank, and grew perenial fruit plants like Monstera in it. I had to feed the ducks every night with chicken pellets to supplement what they got from free ranging and to be honest, unless I wanted ducks as pets, I wouldn't use them myself because they weren't particularly effective and they preferred to eat the pellets instead of the weeds and I certainly wouldn't use them in a pond with fish given how dirty these guys were. He chose ducks (Khaki Campbells) instead of chickens because they are not as destructive as chickens. I have since moved house and have my own chickens, and to be honest I would have chickens any day over the ducks. They are cleaner, they are effective insect controlers, they are less picky about which weeds they will eat, lay heaps of eggs, their scratching habits turns over the mulch aruond the place and actually helps to break it down faster, and are less trouble/more hardy. If I had an aquaponics system where I had a pond for the fish and a pond for the ducks and the water flowed from the fish pond to the duck pond to the grow beds and back to the fish... that might be better *shrugs*. Would give a wider range of nutrients for the plants too. You could put yabbies in the bottom of the duck pond to clean up any solid waste that might accumulate and add a little diversity to your system too. Or, if only one pond was an option, maybe instead of fish yabbies alone were used *shrugs* Maybe even have the grow beds raised off the ground and allowing the ducks to free range under the beds to help with insect and weed control.... There are lots of options for ducks that don't involve ponds that are worth while looking at IMO.

Thanks for your insights guys,
I currently have two chooks - little Pekin bantams who- whilst they have extroadinarily good manners in the garden, make little mess, and very quiet- they don't dont lay any bl**dy eggs! Well - they've only laid one in the three months that Ive had them. To duck or not to duck is a very complex question and i guess each 'aquaponist' or 'permaculturalist' has to decide if their situation REALLY suits the ducks and themselves. my main problem is being very urban and having little space ( roughly 7 x4 square meters) to try and fit (vertical) aquaponics system, vegie garden, fruit trees and room for chooks and ducks ( 'Good luck!' I hear you say) as well as clothesline and room to actually walk through the garden. Others people's experiences provide such invaluable tools in making design decisions, so I think i'm gonna shelve the duck idea for the moment!
Good news- just found my digital camera so hope to post some photos of the backyard chaos very soon.
Cheers,
Aeon.

OFF TOPIC ALERT lol

yeah - in a small yard I don't think I'd do it either - did I mention they stink too and are really noisy - cayuga are meant to be quieter and are a beautiful black colour with metallic green sheen.

I have 26 chickens made up up 4 isa browns hens, one isa brown rooster, 1 black sex-link hen, 1 barred plymouth rock hen, 5 bantam hens and 13 20 week old chicks that I recently hatched out. They all free range around our block here and are off the lay atm. Your pekins are not known for their laying ability as it is (you can generally tell how well they will lay by how easy they will go broody. Breeds that go broody at the drop of a hat like pekins generally don't lay many eggs), and because they go broody easily are more influenced by the seasons too. My Isa Browns are egg production birds and I was getting a lot of eggs out of them around mid summer (I was supplying one of the local cafes with eggs I had so many) but they are starting to drop off now to two-three eggs a day and will slow down further coming into winter. The advantage of your pekins is that they will lay eggs over a longer period of time than my Isa Browns will because after a year or two my birds will be 'burnt out'. You can expect yours to keep laying small numbers of eggs for the next 6 years or more (depending how old they are now).

Bunny Rabbits I heard are a good bet as suppliers of healthy droppings for vegetarian fish.

Ducks are better suited to a large pond-based aquaculture system if odours and mess are to be avoided.

While ducks don't need water to swim in they do need access to enough water to immerse their head in - to keep their eyes clean.

Aeon, given your space limitations, you might want to think about Japanese Quail - the most productive livestock on two legs They can offer a complete 'cradle to the grave' farming experience in very little space and their productivity is amazing.

We first started keeping quail 25 years ago and I would heartily recommend them to anyone seeking to integrate poultry (or game birds more correctly) into their backyard food production system.

Matt, rabbits are the most productive livestock on four legs and are another livestock type that I would recommend to backyard food producers. Regrettably, keeping rabbits is illegal in Queensland so we are unable to produce these animals. For those who can keep them, I'd suggest that you feed the rabbit poop to worms and then feed the worms to the fish. You'll end up with vermicast and worm tea as very useful byproducts.

For those with limited space, I would suggest an integrated food production system comprising aquaponics, quail, bantams, rabbits and worms. You'll quickly be eating some of the cleanest and freshest food on the planet.

I know of a guy in the U.S. who has rabit cages with mesh floors over the top of his tilapia tanks...

Gary,
Thanks - the Quail are a great idea and I am about to construct a single mandala vegie garden in my courtyard with a mini chook dome ( 4 Pekins) to rotate around the 6 circular beds throughout the year for soil preparation ( as per standard peramaculture practice). The whole thing will be enclosed in lots of bird netting to keep my pesky cats out! Perhaps some free range quail running round in there as well (not in the chook dome though)twould be beneficial. What do you think? I would love to get some californian quail as I love their silly hats but havent seen them anywhere near Sydney - any ideas on where I might find some?
Cheers,
Aeon.

A friend has been trying to convince me for years that I should put a little fence around each growbed, then place a couple of quails into one of the beds. Rotating them from bed to bed keeping the slugs and other insects under control while adding fertilizer to the system.. Might have to check out the prices, I am having a bit of a slug poroblem at the moment.

Aeon, you can get quails from most pet shops that have birds..

so talking of feeding poo to fish ........ could I feed them goat poo ? I just read goat poo is good to feed to chooks and is even beneficial to dogs - who usually just help themselves

the worm idea is good but we dont have a lot of success with our worms multiplying ........ could worm casts be fed to fish ?

frosty

Hi Frosty ..

I reckon goat poop would be good ...

Rabbit poop would be excellent in my opinion for any herbivore fish .. I will be trying this one ! (Rabbits even eat their own poop!)

What fish are you growing / considering?

I like the idea of suspending rabbit cages over the fish tank - it would eliminate problems with flies and odours and would avoid the need to remove the droppings from under the rabbit cage....and the manure comes in nice little round packages that would hold their form long enough for the fish to dispose of them.

I imagine rabbit manure would be OK for carp and similar herbivorous fish. Joel, how do you think Silver Perch would go? I guess commercial pellets have some plant protein content - maybe rabbit poop and worms for a balanced diet.

As much as vermicast is a superb soil conditioner and plant tonic, I'm not sure about its use as fish food. Many animals reflect the taste of what they eat in their milk, meat and eggs which is why it's not helpful to feed onions to laying chickens, horehound (a weed) to sheep, etc.

Fish can take on the taste of their environment to some extent as anyone who eats Golden Perch out of the rather muddy Thompson or Mary River systems can attest. I'm not sure how far you could go with fish - it might be useful to conduct some feeding trials. Just as an aside, peasant farmers in China often build their toilets over their carp ponds. They might - I wouldn't!

Joel, the quail idea might work but remember that quail behave like little chooks - they scratch, dig holes and love greenfeed. Once again, it's worth a trial......and it's a very foolish insect or slug that will venture near a quail.

Aeon, I'd suggest you stick to Japanese Quail - they are readily available, hardy, inexpensive and you can eat their eggs. Californians are beautiful but they are expensive. You could probably hard boil quail eggs, coarsely mash them and feed them to fish, too.

Hi Johnie

I think we will start with silver perch but in the long term want something that will breed so are still considering tilapia

seems like goat poo and pigeon eggs could be a good diet so would that cover everything they need ? if not what would we need to add ?

frosty

I think you'd be close to a complete diet with rabbit poo and or goat poo as well as some worms. Silver perch can be grown out on a herbiverous diet so you could probably get by on a diet of just poo, though I'm not sure what percentage of protein you'd get, and as such what growth rates you could expect....

Any off tastes can be solved by purging, as the off flavours generally come from what's in their gut cavity at the time of harvest. Though I do know that animals flesh will also have a certain permanent 'flavour' from their diet. My dad worked for the ag department ad did trials of feeding sheep on saltbushes, part of the trials involved taste testing of the salt bush raised sheep vs pasture raised sheep. The salt bush sheep faired very well in the taste test, pre seasoned perhaps...

Damn, so Quails dig do they? Like most chooks? Might have to be small feather foot bantams then, though I don't know how a quail would go trying to dig into the coarse gravel. And if they did dig down, they would end up with a wet butt, or feet when the bed filled.... The whole plan was based more on moving the 'birds' to whichever bed was finished and harvested, to allow them to perform their scrap and pest clean ups, in a harvested bed, before planting new seedling, so I wasn't too worried about the greens being eaten.