Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So a few months ago I happened to stumble upon the concept of aquaponics and since then I have become addicted to this forum. Seems to happen to a lot of people here
Towards the end of June, I found out that my mother and younger brother had decided to fill up the outdoor concrete pond at their house. In a matter of days, the pond was full of mosquito larvae, so they proceeded to buy around 200 'rosie red' feeder fish to eat the larvae as well as several comet gold fish and four or five koi. Neither my mother or brother took the time to stabilize the water, they just assumed that you could put in the fish and everything would be ok. After several dead fish, my mom was about to spend some serious money on a biofilter when I told her about aquaponics. I then came up for the weekend and proceeded to build a crude biofilter and floating raft for the pond, as well as an air compressor with two outlets; one air stone in the biofilter, one under the floating grow bed.

In the middle are a few zucchini plants; on either side are cucumbers. We also planted celery, basil, cherry peppers, tomatoes, and some strawberries.

Here is the growth after a few weeks

another picture of growth after a few weeks

The night pictures were taken on July 16. Just over a week later, on the 25 of july, I swung by the house to check on the pond and was blown away

I was there again on the 30 of july and it has grown even more!!!

The main purpose of this system was to serve as a biofilter for the pond so that all the fish wouldn't die; harvesting vegetables is secondary seeing nobody lives at this house during the summer. I should have mentioned at the beginning that the well water we have here is very hard and we had a hard time bringing down the pH, which is currently around 7.8. From the latest pictures, I can tell that there is something wrong with the cucumbers because their leaves are burned around the edges. I am also interested about the basil because its leaves have a yellow hue except for the vein areas, which are a deep green. Look forward to hearing back from you all

iron?

Those photos look lush and beautiful. I am wondering what the plant floating in the pond is and if it may have weed potential to take over and cause you some major grief. Welcome to our world!
Faye

I would say iron too...
Welcome - there is no turning back... you are hooked, so might as well get used to it

One plant is water lettuce and the other is water hyacinth. They are very pervasive but easily removed from the water.

Another thing, is the compressor a normal sort of bunnings type? If so, they have a tendency to leak oil after a while, and kill the fish.

Add some seasol to the water to take care of iron and other nutrients.

The yellowing leaves with the green veins are usually a sign of Iron def or lockout of iron due to the high pH. You can spray the plants with dilute Iron sulfate to help quickly or if you can get chleated iron to add to the system that may help some.

Another option would be the seasol or here in the US you might find it under the name maxicrop (you are looking for something that adds trace nutrients, potassium and iron with little nitrogen or phosphorus.) Another option might be flourish tabs or pond flourish.

As to the oil and the air compressor. Some one made an oil catch for their air compressor. I think it was basically a jar that would catch the drops of oil while the air could continue out through another tube. I don't remember where it was though.