Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all. My name is Brian and I live with my wife Leila and son Jude on the west coast of South Africa on a small 29 hectare farm. I am in the process of redoing my farm dam/pond and in the process of trying to find out about suitable fish to stock in it I came across aquaponics. Needless to say I was quite blown away by the concept and just had to get involved.

I am interested in self sufficiency and am trying to get into as many different aspects of it as I can on the farm. The soil (actually sand!) out here is not much good for anything agricultural and I am fortunate in that the previous owner kept pigs and it is where he had them that I have situated my veggy patch which works quite well as there is a lot of manure. I keep bees on the farm and currently have 15 hives. I also keep a handfull of chickens and a few muscovy ducks.

Other hobbies/jobs include windsurfing (We live 20mins from one of the worlds windsurfing meccas Langebaan lagoon ) and making guitars and oil can guitars. www.townshipguitar.co.za and am the part owner of Luna design co which specialises in turning recycled wood into a veriety of homeware items www.lunadesigns.co.za This is my main focus and the company employs 45 people.

I look forward to tucking into my first tilapia fillet, but I am going to need a little (lot!) of help from you lot First. I have started to throw a small system together so I look forward to all the comments and advice from the more expierienced aquaponic gurus on this blog . Thanks for having me.

Ps I will post pics of my system so far on the Members systems are (probably medium size)

Hay there and welcome!
I already posted on your new system thread so I'll leave that there.
Just that there is no escape now, Aquaponics is quite addictive but at least you have found a good support group here

Welcome to the forum, and the world of aquaponics... Brian, Leila and Jude....

There's a couple of people over your way into aquaponics... including Synaptoman (Knysna)... who's won a couple of "green" awards...

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2601

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3613

And his blog....

http://synaptoman.wordpress.com


And SA-Aqua .... (Durban)

viewtopic.php?t=4510


And Axle... (Sandton)

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3996

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4102

Just be careful if you contact Synapto - you might end up with more than you bargained for!