Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

LOl, so while searching for ideas for a better filter for one of my multiple fish tanks I stumbled across aquaponics. All I can say is wow, how come all us fish obsessed people have never heard of it? LOL. I'm not that interested in growing veggies etc, all my tanks (all 11 of em) are situated inside. I'd love to have a go at growing some plants to cut down on water changes, as changing out 100's of litres of water every week is backbreaking and also we use rainwater, so there's never enough. I read on one site lucky bamboo can be used but any other suggestions?

The other thing I was curious about is stocking levels, in your average tank its only so far you can push the stocking before you know you'll be doing 50% water changed every day to get rid of the build up of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. The stocking levels are very light to say the least 40-80l per goldfish, is a common one.

Lol it's such a great idea, I've never heard of it before, but am sure gonna have a go at it LOl, I like the fish themselves not gravel vaccuums and buckets LOL.

Thanks Emma

Hi Emma and welcome... had to google "Quorrobolong" to see where it was.... nice piece of countryside up that way for sure....

There's a few here with past aquarium experience and many others running aquarium or small fish tank based systems....

I'll let them respond, but search through the forum threads...

Pretty sure you'll become a total convert very quickly

Hi there Emma, you've found the right place...

Most indoor plants should grow well in an aquaponic system, though you may have to keep in mind that indoor plants don't generally grow quickly, so they won't be stripping as many of the nutrients out of the system as some fasy growing, heavy feeding veggies..

I grow "devils Ivy" in one of my systems, and I've had some ferns growing before as well, they grew well on my back verandah..

So long as you have the growbeds and plants to support it, you can have very high stocking levels. I have 120 silver perch in my 2000L tank at the moment and they are averaging about 400g, and I haven't changed any water out of that system in many months, all I do is top it up.

LOl i always debate whether to say middle-of-nowhere or quorrobolong, basically the same thing LOL.

Lol whether or not I can keep plants alive is another thing, I failed dismally at planted tanks, the poor fish still have chunks of dead elodea floating around their tank because the dratted stuff shredded itself within just a few hours of being moved to a new tank.

Lol sounds fun, I'd love to add more goldie sto me 200l tank, but the water changes are an absolute drag, its a stock tank that lives on the ground LOL

Emma... have a look at Anna's System ..... for instance

Or Janet's Indoor System .... a stable long running system...

Sounds very like what you want to do

I had a look at that, i cant see how it works though? Lol I work better with nice colourful diagrams, is the water siphoning into all the buckets? I dont see any tubes...

Another question LOl, the flow rate of pumps. I've got serious filtration on my tanks for afore mentioned reasons, how much do plants need/put up with. On some tanks I have over 10 times filtration per hour. The fish love it but I cant see plants likeing being blown to bits

Just saw you'd edited your post, Janets system looks good, hmmm must buy for storage tubs LOL, what plants would grow well in it?

So devils ivy, some types of fersn, apparently my Mum (yes I still live at home, tis cheaper lol) swears she has some type if plant that lived indoors until it grew too big and stuck it in a pond LOL.

Welcome Emma!

Thats EXACTLY how i found out about AP!

I got an aquarium, did all the reading i could on the nitrogen cycle.

Was not happy about the regular water changes, and between noticing how the herb patch that i dumped my water changes onto was growing out of control and reading up on the nitrogen cycle i stumbled upton Joels backyard aquaponics site, and here i am!

We've talked about max stocking densities before, 60kg fish per 1000 litres is often used as the MAX provided you have the ammount of plants to remove the nitrates, usually quoted as 2000lt growbed volume at 300mm deep.

I warn ya, if you've got 11 aquariums then you WILL become hooked here.

Seriously though, you eat yeh? Why not just pump the water outside to a grow bed and you all your veggie needs?

For some indoor setups have a quick browse through the members systems, maybe all the ones with indoor systems can post a link here for you.

I have some lebanese watercress growing atop my murray cod indoor tank, more for the reasons you listed. with 4 murray cod in a 4 foot tank = killer water changes otherwise. the watercress was planted as cutting about 3 weeks ago

Hi Emma, and welcome!

Random comments from reading the conversation so far....

I turn my tank volume over 3x/hour, running the pump continuously. Each grow bed fills and drains in about 10-12 minutes. The plants are quite happy with that.

I historically have always failed at planted aquariums. Aquaponics plants are doing well for me, in spite of my history.

I have not taken water out of my AP system since I got my nitrogen cycle established. In fact, when I need to change water out of my 2 aquariums, I dump the dirty water into the AP system.

Right now I have 56 4-5 inch (10-13cm) tilapia in 125gal (475 liters) of water. I measured my nitrates yesterday, and it was down to 30. (It was over 100 for a while.) Woohoo, I get to feed them a bit more now! Ammonia and nitrite have been 0 since I increased turnover to 3x. I expect to be able to grow the fish to eating-size; about .67 pounds (.3kg), for a total fishload of about 38 pounds (17kg) at the peak. We'll see how well that goes. I haven't had the system going long enough to get near maximum load. Give me a few more months, and I should be having the first fish dinner.

hey J, when my outdoor bed was planted out with tommies during the summer i'd do the same thing, dump my aquarium water into the AP for processing LOL. the winter veggie batch is looking a tad sad atm not not as much nitrate removal going on

oh, btw the lebanese watercress in the pic is just poked though a floating raft........ now that winter is here i might even think about putting the 400W HPS light above them for a few hours per night. (i don't have heating in the computer room. LOL)

Dual purpose ...
more points

i'd not even consider it otherwise! its been sitting on my floor since i bought it from ebay!

BTW, are your fish cool water or tropical or a mix?

I've seriously thinking about popping out a brick in the computer room and pumping water outside and then back in again, but it would be easier (and done by now ) if i had cool water fish inside, not tropical, semi-tropicals

Sounds a good idea steve! just make provision for the coldies in the next one, soon... you need some trout. bring on the under eve tank!!!!