Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just thought I'd say hi. I've been lurking for a few weeks reading as many posts as I can. We have a large family and I've always loved the idea of feeding my own family from our own backyard but haven't been able to do it. I only found out about aquaponics a month ago and LOVE the idea and immediately started planning my system. I was thinking of a 3000lt of fish tank, 1000lt sump and 2000lt of grow beds. Went out the back to measure the yard and realised that I'd probably be taking up at least 1/2 of it. As we're renting and the house was brand new when we moved in (and we're a large family) our landlord's are very strict so I started thinking that I might need to change my approach and start off with a smaller system that can be kept under the pagola'd area, maybe a 1000lt tank with 2 growbeds. I could always say it's for the kids homeschool project. The owners appear to like us but as we've only been in this house for 10 months I don't think it's long enough for them to feel comfortable. Another downside is that I read our lease this morning, knowing that it was strict but not remembering the exact wording and it says this in the special conditions:

The Tenant agrees not to house ANY animal of ANY kind on the rental premises, even on a short-term or temporary basis or "Pet-sitting," including dogs, cats, birds, fish, reptiles, etc. or any other animals on the property or in the premises during the term of this Lease Agreement.

Our lease is nearly up and the estate agent seemed keen for us to sign another lease so I've been thinking about ringing them and seeing if we could make the new lease a little less strict on the fish part.

Thanks for this great forum. It's been real eye opening, reading all the posts, and sooooooo helpful.

Welcome!

Despite a similar clause in my old lease agreement, the Real Estate company said "Fish aren't pets"

But if you ask permission, and state they'll be outside only, you will find that they will probably say yes. The fear of fish is mainly due to damaged carpet, and shrunken floorboards.

Ask away, and be very open. A small system is probably safer to win the landlord only.

Welcome aboard, Lavender (& assorted crew)!

KP is right. And often the landlord is more relaxed than the rental agency. Communication is key....all of them hate to find big unauthorized changes (as I keep reminding my crew: get permission for the chainsaw!...*grin*). And time is good: after a time (maybe about a decade?) your landlord will let you do about anything.

Space is a tough consideration. There are some space-saving designs (like stacking growbeds over sumps or even a one-box system), but they have some other trade-offs....

I had a small 1000l system... outside The landlord was happy with it and seemed to find it interesting when it was producing loads of baby toms...

You could always run a large diameter pipe along the fence line, holes drilled in it big enough to fit pots... as long as the fence can take the weight...

Oh and WELCOME - hope to hear a lot about your system as it grows

A bed's above tank and no sump system uses little space. Say a 2 metre long and 1 metre wide grow bed ,, under it is a 2 metre long and 1 metre wide fish tank ( 80 cm deep) . The fish tank basically is the sump as well as the fish tank ,, nice neat simple.
Just base maximum fish numbers on bed size NOT tank size ,,could easily do 100 fish in there and you will be surprised how much vegie you can get from 2 square metres. Make it as neat and attractive as possible ,, then convince the land-lord HE needs an AP system.

Thanks for the welcome. Yes I think baby steps are the way, as much as I'd love to just jump in boots and all, and yes I was hoping that after we'd shown the agent the fruits of our labour they'd be just as excited about it as us. The owners and agents are very 'green' and set the house up with solar hot water and a rainwater tank for the toilets and would see the benefits of aquaponics. We met one of the owners at our first inspection and according to the estate agents she was really impressed with how we were looking after the place and the interest and care we were taking of their 'investment'. I just can't wait to get started.

Strict lease that one, good luck, Rupert should have info on that, I'm sure he has been down that road

boots and all is all good and well, 'tis what I did, but it makes design fixes expensive and llearning as you go more difficult.

Hey L2,

KP is right, start small to get it right, cycling the system this time of the yr might only take 4-6 weeks and it doesnt take long to get ALOT of growth in your plants with AP....I started my first system around this time of the yr and being 30 minutes from you I'd say we would have the same climate lol. When you get it running it is easy to expand....you wont have alot of deaths like some other members have had when biting off too much at the start (hey KP .

Can you afford to construct a "small temporary" hothouse structure..thats how I got around my problem with the lease...my landlord is also "green" and liked the idea of me putting a temp hothouse on the property to grow my own food with minimal water use...I also pointed out that fish kept outside wont dig up the gardens n piss on the plants or shrink floorboards (which is beneficial when on a slab) so therefore wouldnt be a problem.

All I did was draw up a rough design with measurements of the footprint and submitted that with the new lease for approval by the owners, the agent cant stop you from doing that.

...btw is interesting about the reptiles...the agents sound like nazi's, like the others have mentioned, I reckon the owners/landlord might be easier to get along with.

Nah, the agents and owners aren't nazi's it's just that it was a brand new house and well, you know, families with more than 3 kids are feral (not my opinion, just seems to be the general concensus) so to start with the lease is a bit tight, but at least these guys gave us a chance. The eight of us were living with my husbands aunty in her tiny two bedroom unit for three months before we got this house so I REALLY don't want to do anything that will put us on the owner's bad side (we've had friends who've taken even longer to be accepted for a house). I've nearly finished the draft of the letter to the real estate and hope to submit it to them after we've paid rent this week (paying rent on time always gets them in a good mood) and I really like Chappo's idea for the fish tank and grow bed, we'll work towards the hothouse (that was my original plan), hopefully after they see the success of the smaller system they'll jump at the chance to see how a bigger one goes.

cool..........btw my small system was a bathtub and ibc in a small hothouse..very similar to chappo's idea, very small footprint and looked nice (which also helps convince the agent etc to let you keep it) and out in the sunlight

lol ran out of edit time.............I made sure the agent got a copy of a design to hand over to the owners on my first lease renewal so they all got an idea of what I wanted. Hopefully you get alot of sunlight in your pergola area for the plants. The hothouse I made I kept the neighbours in mind and also located it on a part of the property so that it wouldnt be considered an eyesore. You might find that if you do the hothouse thang the owners might not be worried about any damage to the building if there were any accidents etc, only a patch of grass would need to be re-sown in the backyard. Any way good luck, you'll have heaps of fun

I'm not sure that the plants would get enough sun under the pergola, that's why it wasn't my first choice to put it there, but it has a double powerpoint. With little kids I don't like the idea of running a power cord for any length around the yard. The only other spare power point outside is around the side of the house where the hot water service is, which would again mean running the cord somewhere with more light. I need to download Sketch and try and draw up my plans.

Hi again,

I was looking at the steel water tanks and if it's not too pricey getting a fish tank and grow bed custom made, they look nice and neat.My husband isn't handy and I think my life wouldn't be worth living if I did any building while pregnant. I am assuming that they would be safe for the fish. Does anybody know any different? If I do head this way should I line them with plastic?

Thanks.

I had a Corrugated tank and was painted with a sealant inside but this did start to peel, other mates just have them bare with no problems, I think a Poly tank would be cheaper though