Hi All!
This is my first post. I found this forum very interesting and lot to learn from. I been reading posts since late last year and I finally registered as newbie a few weeks ago.
I like the idea of growing our own food from home. I would like to share a salad bowl with my wife, from vegetables that I produce. My 2 daughters likes to eat fish. Any fish, as long as they are fried.
I decided to start my journey on aquaponics by starting this post.
I plan to head to the shops this weekend and start a small DIY aquaponics project. Here's how I intend to start. Please, please guide me through this undertaking. I humbly welcome comments, suggestions as well as criticism.
Fish Tank:
As I want to start this project small, I intend to construct my tank from 3/4" plywood, 2'x4'x2' (HxLxW). I will support it with 2x4 and cover with plastic / pond liner. Max capacity is about 120 gals (US) or about 450L.
Q: After cycling, I'll have 20 tilapias in it, can this much number of fish reach a good size for the plate?
Q: I like to see colors in the tank, can I put gold fish or koi with the tilapias?
Q: The fish tank will be placed under the shade, is this ok? Do tilapias need to be under the sun?
Sump Tank:
The FT will have a SLO made from 2" PVC pipe going to a sump tank which is an old Coleman ice chest, maybe 30-40 gals. I'll use 1500L/hr aquarium pump to take water to the grow beds.
Grow Beds:
I plan to have 2 2'x3' grow beds, both 10-12 inches deep. I will fill them with rounded gravel up to the top. Nutrient rich water will be supplied from the sump tank and will leave via an Affnan style automatic siphon. I will try to time it so that it takes 15 mins to fill both GB when filled with gravel.
Q: Are the grow bed dimensions appropriate to the number of fish that I will have?
Q: At what stage in the process can I start putting seeds to the beds?
Cycling:
I'll start with 2-5 goldfish in a half-filled tank to kickstart the cycling process. I have 50gal aquarium with one flowerhorn fish in the living room and I do 10gals weekly water change. I plan to add this old water to fish tank whenever I do water changes, until the fish tank if filled. I hope this will help speedup the process. I'll have water testing kit also, so I'll know what's happening in the system.
That's what I imagined my small system to be. No pictures to share right now, just my eagerness to get started. But I don't want to be too hasty. I'd like to know your thought on these please.
Thanks,
Loy