Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello! Aquaponics noobie here, just starting the initial planning for my backyard system. I figured I'd introduce myself and give a quick intro to my plans for our system. My wife and I are very excited.

I have a very large backyard in a residential neighborhood, and my wife and I have always wanted to start growing our own food. At the same time, we wanted to build a nice pond (dug out from the earth, no tanks) so we decided to combine the two for maximum efficiency and to make sure that our pond was not just a waste of water for purely aesthetic reasons.

We've been doing lots (LOTS) of research but I do have a question for the initial setup:

I want to start with a large pond, (700-1000 gal for future expansion) and two-three GB with approximate dimensions of 4.5-5ft long x 3-3.5 ft wide x 12" deep (from what I've read 12" is enough to grow just about anything we could want to plant). I want to start small so I dont put in maximum effort/money only to mess up and kill everything.

My question is on my system setup. I'm probably going to start with the cheapest goldfish I can find (again, in case I screw something up and kill everything) but will eventually want to farm tilapia. With such a large tank, but only a few fish to support a couple of GB, Im not sure what size pump I should get and how much I need to pump. From what I've learned, the entire contents of the pond needs to be cycled through the GB every hour, so if I'm going to go the ebb and flow route (with a bell syphon) does that mean I can just get a 1000gph pump and just leave it running 24/7 assuming my bell syphon is dialed in? Then I can just add more fish as I add more GB's?

Any help is appreciated and Im glad I found this forum, seems like a great community to be a part of.
Thanks.

Welcome to the forum fwid77



Not exactly, you need to find a pump that will pump the volume of the fish tank in one hour at whatever head height you are pumping to. The head height is the distance from the top of the water that the pump is in, to the highest point you are pumping to. Most pumps have a chart or table showing how high they can pump at any given head height. It's also a good idea to get a pump that can handle solids, pond pumps can usually do this pretty well. One last thing that I think is very important is to get an energy efficient pump because even though it might be more costly upfront it will save you money and more than pay for the difference in price because of the cost of electricity.

As far as leaving it run 24/7 with the bell siphons already dialed in - yes that's exactly what you would do. Yes also to just adding more fish as you add more grow beds (just stock based on the amount of filtration you have).

@fwid77 - Hi and welcome

Welcome! I'm also from Phoenix.

Thanks for the info @scotty435, and thanks for the welcome everyone else.