Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey folks, I'm Kristen from rainy Western Washington (I live a couple hours away from Forks, you know, "Twilight" and all that). I have a dream, but no idea if it can work: have a nice looking raised grow bed and koi pond aquaponics setup in my back yard. Because I'd like this to be a feature, I'm willing to spend some money to make it look nice. Here is a picture I drew in google sketch up, but the grow bed is much too small. (The lady came with the template--she's standing on the bottom of the pond, 2 feet below ground level.)



I'll post separately on the specific plans, so experts here can give me their expert advice. So far all the koi people say I'm crazy, but they spend thousands of $$ on their fish. I plan to buy good quality small fish, but not spend a fortune on them. Just want some pretty, healthy, long-lived pets. No plans to actually eat them.

Hiya..

I was up your way, I visited a few People in your area that had Koi Ponds..
- I went out in the sound to watch the whales and had a great time..

Some of the ponds out your way are very nice..
You actually have a fairly good group of Koi people you could ask for advise regarding the general making of the pond..
Personally in your area I would go down at least 4ft below ground to give the koi a better buffer over Winter..

You will have to have supplementary filtration..

Ok here is What I would do for your Pond..

Pond >> Bottom Drains >> Settlement chamber >> Pump
Pump circuit 1 >> Grow-beds are higher than the Pond
Pump circuit 2 >> Moving Media barrel.. >> Back to the Pond..

What are you going to do over winter..? I'm not sure how Cold it get in your area I was there over summer and it was mild..

Juergen

That should be fine kriskm, your bed isn't too small if you stock fish suitable for that amount of growbed...

Yep, fish stock per GB volume +1

Thanks folks. As I read more and more here, I'm getting a better sense of what I can do. I'm nervous because I'd like to start out with such a big pond, but I'm hoping to give myself some wiggle room by stocking it really lightly, with just a dozen or so small koi.

You've got a relatively mild climate so you should be fine, although, you might want to dig the pond a little deeper into the ground as SnowT mentioned. I'd just stock as EB suggested - low maintenance