Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

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Hi People,

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster

My question is : Is there a minimmum depth for which Silver Perch should be kept at ?

The reason I ask is that I am able to get my hands on a pre-formed outdoor pond which is roughly 500mm in depth, and I was wondering if this would be deep enough? I have some experience in keeping fish (dicus and hoplo cats), however these were in an aquarium and were not being grown for food.

The pond holds roughly 750Litres..should anybody be wondering.

I'm waiting on the book etc.. from joel, but thought I would ask this question in the mean time.

regards,

Himzo

Hi Himzo, welcome
I prefer to have more depth in the tank to allow for any untoward accidents A number of us have had pump accidents and lost lots of water. So far I don't think anyone has lost any fish this way.

A big issue is whether your proposed method of delivery of water to plants will reduce the depth further. IMHO 50cm is enough if you keep it at that level all the time.

if its free (or cheap) grab it, it would be a good size to start with...and then for your next system.....:sigh:

Welcome himzol

It would be of ideal size for sump though..

Not if you are from the same school as me and Aussieponic

welcome himzol

as the others said, if you are going to flood and drain from it, likelihood is it will be too shallow, but if you are not going to drop the level to fill the growbeds ie using a syphon in the pond and a pump in the sump, then i think it should be fine.

See my thread for latest water problem at 12:15 pm, post 3 hrs from busso and a 3 1/2 hr flight

Yeah the price is right so I may try it down the track.

The first thing I need to do is read Joel's book from cover to cover when it arrives.
Then I need to isolate my gardening area with some bird netting from a little ring tail possum who thinks I'm his/her private gardener.

I would like to go the flood drain method ( from waht I've read on these forums).. though from the comments above I may need to experiment a bit before I put livestock in, just to avoid any surprises.

If you're worried about it being too shallow you could always try something else like yabbies, then it wouldn't matter if the water level dropped during the pumping cycle.

Yeah had the same idea, I have a friend who lives up the road who has a dam on his property, so I think the price of the yabbies will be right as well.

You may have to cover the tank in such shallow water to keep the birds away!
colin.

Nice size (preformed) pond.
“If you're worried about it being too shallow”, use a full header tank connected to the pond with a float valve at the pond end.

Instead of returning the water from the GB to the pond, pump it back to the header tank.

You will need a sump with a float switch pump for this.
Should keep the pond water level constant.

Cheers, Steve S.

Thanks Colin,

Yeah the kukka's around here would make short work of anything in a shallow pond.

Thanks for the advice steve, It would mean having two pumps but I'm sure the budget could be streched just a bit.