Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

holy crap, the guy with the pond had way too much spare time Looks great, But I would need an excavator to do that to my yard

For all those people looking at the commercial possibilities of AP:

Accountant: what is this deduction in your tax return?

APer: It's a fish tank.

Accountant: It looks like a lap pool.

APer: Nope definitely a fish tank.

Accountant: Why have you included these invoices from the builder who extended your house as deductions?

APer: Well it had to have its own green house and I saved money by having it share a wall with the house.

Leave the pool as is. Make sure there has not been any chlorine in it for a while, and throw the fish in (gently of course). I used my pool sand filter for a long time, over a year and rasied a fair amount of fish. Then I got a bit over excited, and ended up with way too many fish before the GB's were in place. Then we had a major algea problem (to much nutrient) which led to other issues.

If I had kept the fish load down to a reasonable level, which was about 100 fish for a 12-15,000 gal. pool I would never have had any issues using only the pool sand filter with an daily back wash. I did this for over a year with no issues and relatively clear water and I swam nearly every day.

I have been converting a below-ground swimming pool for the past couple of months. Some platys I introduced have bred very well. Shortly, I expect to take delivery of 50 silver perch. You'd be welcome to come and take a look.

Hi adrian, good to hear your still at it.... might be time to start a thread mate and post a couple of pics as to what you've done and what you plan to do

I imagine have some pretty agressive fish in your pool would help keep the neighbor's teenagers from slipping over the fence for a dip.

Can you imagine the reaction?! It would be much more effective if you were to cue in the sound track to jaws as well...

Hi Adrian
Platys your not talking platypussies are you ???

I understand they are extremely difficult to breed in captivity with a very poor success rate, My hat off to you.

When I lived in Eltham Vic, I knew where there was 2 separate colonies of them which I visited regulary, I still keep the locations secret.

Platypus are one of my favorite aussie animals along with the hairy nose wombat and ecidna's

The platypus and ecidna's are monotremes, meaning mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.

Cheers
Ron

Platys are a small tropical fish that breeds like a guppie.
They're pretty enough, but to a lay person, there often mistaken for goldfish.
They are, like guppies, live-bearers

[quote="Mathew"]Leave the pool as is. Make sure there has not been any chlorine in it for a while, and throw the fish in (gently of course). I used my pool sand filter for a long time, over a year and rasied a fair amount of fish.


Great to know it has been done successfully, even though you did get 'overexcited'. We are looking forward to getting started once the weather cools down, now we know it is as simple as 'throwing in the fish' and running the sand filter! .....now to source some fish that will be eating size by the start of the next summer......

Actually Steve was helping out someone (Chrissy??) to convert a large pool that had algael problems....

Any update on that one Steve

maybe Julie??

Dan, i reckon it would be ok to swim in a healthy AP system. i wouldn't let any one other than immediate family in though, one for disease control and two no one can blame you for getting an ear infection!

the pool filter would probably turn into a biofilter and it would take probably the whole winter for the nitrates to accumulate to very high levels, so you could do it without the plants i guess. there is NO WAY i would swim with my trout! i have seen how sharp their teeth are, AND how hungry they always are.

let us know how you go!

Thank you, John, for your patience and advice on uploading pictures. Here’s a pic of my pool conversion. It may get me banned from the Forum, because I have leaned towards Aquaculture rather than AP. The plants in the 1m2 tubs and on the steps of the pool are in soil, in pots. We’re trying all sorts of plants to test which are the more suitable.

The pic shows, left to right, two round tubs of 200 litre capacity, three 1m2 growing beds, three successive ponds built on earth and pool liners and finally the original pool.

A submersible pump recirculates a pool’s volume (approx 75,000 litres) every 24hours. It’s keeping a 30cm Koi, seven 15cm goldfish, a dozen swordtails and hundreds of platys happy.

First water test results seem reasonable (pic attached). The water seems to fluctuate between quite clear and turbid, lately perhaps of warmer weather. At night the first aeration produces some froth.

I’m expecting 50 10cm silver perch supplied by Sally and Greg Howard who breed them in Badgingarra and am trying to decide how to accommodate them: free in the pool or restricted in cages. Advice and comment are very welcome.

do a high range ph test.

Nice set of teeth behind those water tests - smiles not bad either