Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello there,

Complete newbie to the art of aquaponics, with a bit of experience from aquarium/ water chemistry etc.

Currently in the process of buying my parents house as they are down sizing.
My future system has to be functional but not be an eyesore (says the boss)
The property has two 10' x 8' green houses at the top of the garden with a small pond near the bottom.
Would like to make a large pond at the bottom of the garden (40ft away) with the water pumped up to the green houses, through filtration, into grow beds then flow back down via a winding stream to the pond.
The garden is on a bit of a slope which suits the stream, although my concern is the power requirement for the pump.
My idea is that the grow beds are on a take off from the main flow after filtration and I can add to the system as funds/time etc is available.
Really looking fwd to getting started.
The information the forum provides is great and at times overwhelming.
Would appreciate advice before I start the build.

Would love to hear from anyone using a pond/greenhouse combo.

Cheers guys, all the best.

Jock.

I'm guessing nobody's working with a pond and greenhouse. Welcome to the forum! In your place I'd be inclined to keep the pond and decorative stream completely separate from the aquaponics in the greenhouse - it's much easier to start with something simple, and an outside pond will introduce a heck of a lot of variables to your system. (And probably dirt. )

Is the pond line with rubber pond foil? If so I dont think you have to worry about dirt getting into the system. I disagree with Mel haha, the deco stream would add a lot of oxygen to the water and I think trout will love it. So the stream might be decorative&functional, win win. Also a big pond will leave more room for a little mistake as the system is more robust I guess.

There should be a pump out there which can handle the elevation, but it probably will consume a lot of energy.

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pops up quite a bit across the forum... even ponds inside greenhouses.
quite viable to do it - and similar cases where people used swimming pools etc

search 'pond' and you will get heaps of hits.

advanced search 'pond' with search 'topic titles only' ends up with quite a list.

instructions here.... viewtopic.php?f=4&t=27201

The idea was to fully line the pond, the stream would have a few falls to oxygenate water as well as the decorative feature for the garden.
The pond itself is going to be 5-6' deep with a rough width of 25 ft, I was going to fit moving bed filtration to absorb high spots in waste production when the beds are not using the nutrients.
The pond will be netted for the autumn/ winter to stop leaves and debris and to keep the herons at bay.
Not sure on the fish type yet as winter temps might not be good for the trout, might stick with decorative.

Well I'm happy to be corrected and that does sound pretty! How cold does it get there in winter?

Mel, It can get down to about -10C at times but the general weather hovers about 5-6C during winter unless we get a cold snap.
Not sure if it would be simpler to grow and sell on koi carp rather than the trout, would prefer trout for harvesting.

Arent trout native fish in scotland? Anyway, -10 air temp wont make the water -10 else it would be a frozen block of ice :p.
Plus the greenhouse would heat up the water a bit so I dont think it would become much colder than +/- 5 degrees C.

Last but not least, I think trout can handle cold better than koi carps.



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