Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm Cesar from Portugal, living on Maia (near Oporto airport)

I'm running a small hydroponic system since last summer. It has only 2.5 square meters of water boxes and some "rafts" on top.
Growing lettuce, spinach, watercress and parsley, and some other things to try soon (like pak choi)!

Under those water boxes there are some unused space, that i'm thinking to build 1 water tank
(around 700 liters).
I've another space that can be used for a smaller one (300L) or some support equipment to the bigger one and grow beds on top.

So... the next step can be an "upgrade" to a aquaponic system

After some research i've found this forum.. and here i am hopping to get some more information
about the subject

Regards,
Cesar

Cesar,

Welcome to one of the best Aquaponics resources on the web (and anywhere else I suspect!)

Aquaponics makes hydroponics easier and aquaponics makes aquaculture easier. It's like a
perfect match similar to chocolate and peanut butter...

Please send some pictures as we are a visual lot, and with pictures we can help you plan and
dream about your upgrade. Have you considered using a media (like gravel) based growbed
to serve as a nice bio-filter? That 300L spot might work nicely for a sump tank if that is in the
future plans.

Forum members Rita and Oruam are also from Portugal and there might be others.

--
Sam

At this point i only have a sketch of what i can get for that space!
That green big box is actually divided in few smaller boxes in order to make easier to grow different
vegetables or in different stages of grow.

But if the aquaponic "upgrade" will came true, i do prefer to get only one big space.

This space was used for storing propane gas deposits to be used in the house.
I do not use propane... so this space had no use for me.

I had 2 choices:
- Break that thing down.
- Or use it for something useful!

So i build that small hydroponic system on top of it and since that space had doors, used it for storing some rarely used things (useless things, most of them)!

At this moment only have the sketch that can be seen bellow.
I have done this sketch in order to get an idea of what i can do with the space.

Final details will depend on fishes i can put in there!
And that is my actual problem!

I do love trout , but they are a demanding species in water quality, oxygenation and it seems to be hard to find a source for buying young fishes periodically!

Can breed and grow mozambique tilapia (the only tilapia species that is allowed in Portugal)!
they breed easily, grow quite fast to around 500 grams. But need to heat the water!

Will accept more ideas for the fish part of the system

In all cases i have the food problem!
Its hard to get food for aquaculture in "small" quantities, and ornamental fish food is to expensive to
use it as base fish food source!

So... it seems that i have a hard way in front of me, but don't give up easily

Good morning from Portugal.
My little project has some small developments!

Before making the full transformation i started with glass tanks around 200 Liters (+/-50 gallons)
And need to build one or 2 small grow beds.
Finally found someone who had some medium sized mozambique tilápias (+/- 10Cm / 5 inch).
Got 5 of them... at least 2 of them seems to be males.
It's now time to breed them

The final problem to solve is the food source for the tilapia!
For this first approach to aquaponics, i'm using cichlids food from aquarium store, but this is
the most expensive way to feed them

I found on internet some people giving trout food to the tilapia!
But until this moment i can't get trout food source in small quantity...
they only work with large quantities for aquaculture farms!

What other types of food are you all giving to your tilapias?
I can get some space to grow some floating plants like azolla or duckweed!
It seems that those plants have a good protein contents.
But i suppose this should not be the only food source! Or it will be enough?

Thanks,
Cesar