Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

really nice

Thanks Steve. Yes Quad, that is an anemone. I collected it in an area under 2' deep, with very little water movement. this is the environment in the refugium & its doing good. It receives quite a bit of light, & a shrimp pellet every day.

What sort of anemone is it? it doesn't seem to have the bubbled tips like the... bubble tip anemone

Nic

Not really sure, but the closest match I've found online was a hatian pink tipped anemone.

So whats planned for the tank? or whats fish are in it?

Concerning corals your lighting should be sufficient for coralimorphs, zoathids, hammer coral (may need a MH) and a few sponges.

I was scared ****less about coral been too hard and didn't bother for some time but once i finished work experience with a marine expert i got given so many corals i just re-rocked my tank as a reef and put them reasonably high (i am only using fluros). My tank only has one green chromis atm and a heap of corals i can't get enough of them

Nic

As of now I have a royal gramma, the mandarin, a pajama cardinal, a pair of banded coral shimp, a pistol shrimp, 3 brittle starfish & 3 blue chromis. I may collect a french angel next time I go snorkeling. I don't plan to have corals because it gets way too hot in the summer. With 2 20" fans blowing directly onto the surface of the water all day, the temp still stays around 86F. I know I can buy a chiller, but I'm just afraid of losing big bucks in critters. Maybe if I put in an A/C I'll reconsider, but not for now. Right now I really don't know what do to with anyhing about anything, since I'm seriously considering moving to Washington State.

Cheers!

Nic,
Live rock is interesting, but mostly looks like it would take the place of the growbed as a place to convert ammonia to nitrate, although the coralline algae would take up some nutrients.

I've just been reading up on "integrated multi-trophic aquaculture" and it looks pretty applicable. The idea is exactly what AP is all about: waste from one system being manna to another.

One fellow in BC, Canada, is raising salmon in a recirculating system with the solids going out to regular compost beds and gardens. Other folks are working on far more ambitious systems with all marine life.

So, perhaps, in a marine system with fish and live rock one could have
large fish waste>filter>garden
remainder of waste and water>mussel or oyster bed to filter organic bits>live rock pool
(with whatever organisms keep them free of excess adhering algae). If the mussels
are insufficient, perhaps one could have algae/plankton-eating animals like artemia
or algae-filtering fish to help out.

One would have to keep in mind that one would need enough light going into the system to allow plants (algae of various sorts) to convert waste into biomass.

You also don't get veggies, except from the nearby garden fed with fish manure: all meat AP.

So, what tasty marine species can handle large temperature fluctuations? Is there an edible fast-breeding small filter feeder or would one simply let the big fish eat excess population?

hydro, i cant see the garden appreciating 35ppt salt water

Nope, but perhaps the solids could be washed or soaked in fresh water, with the brackish rinse water going back into marine system to make up for evaporative losses. Also, a lot of plants do fine with a bit of salt: the person who did this is in a high-rainfall area (BC, Canada) so rain would remove excess salt.

It's official, you're all as crazy as I am. I love this place. I live in Hawaii and have been thinking about this idea for a long time. In fact after I set up my freshwater AP system its saltwater for me.

Where I live a highschool is growing macroalgae in shallow pools that they sell to local restaurants and supermarkets. In hawaii we call it limu or as the japanese know it as ogo. This school has not integrated fish because they are keeping it simple with just ponds and air pumps. What's interesting to me is that they claim their seaweed crop has been devastated by small crustaceans. This got me thinking that I could get planktivores as well as herbivores to grow in a system like this.

My idea was to set up two tanks. One for the fish and one containing macroalgae.
On the macroalgae tank you could do reverse daylight photosynthesis (which is basically leaving a light on at night) to continue the filtration of the water through photosynthesis and also to reduce pH fluctuation. If you had planktivore type fish species you could essentially create a refugium tank with the macroalgae and a deep sand bed to produce plankton. With air driven pipes (think aquarium undergravel filter uplift tubes) connecting the systems the plankton would be pulled from one tank (refugium) to the other. By incorporating carnivorous or omnivorous species of fish you would be adding protein based feed to these fish whose wastes would supply the nutrients for the macroalgae which would feed the plankton. I think this would be a great system.

I can collect various species of fish that the ancient hawaiians used to keep in ocean fish ponds from the tidepools by my home. These are basically lagoon type species that can handle fluctuations much better than most saltwater fish. Also, since it is almost impossible for anyone to acquire tank raised fry (even though we do have ocean based aquaculture here) I think this would be more a more than efficient method for stocking my tanks.

I do realize a large refugium would be necessary in proportion to any given amount of fish so as far as additional bio-filtration I've thought of wet/dry filters utilizing bioballs, biobale, or even biohome. Here in hawai it is illegal to collect liverock and as was pointed out earlier very cost prohibitive to do on a large scale if purchased. I also have thought of using matala mats or japanese mats.

All of these choices are pretty expensive so I was thrilled when I found a thread on monsterfishkeepers.com that showed a diy algae turf scrubber. It was basically a gravel tidy (used to cover gravel in UGF systems so fish cant dig) that was suspended vertically and had water being pumped over it through a pvc spraybar. They had great results on rather large tanks and many people had actually removed their protein skimmers and wet/dry filters. One guy documented his progress and to see a completely clean screen mesh become enveloped in algae up to 1" thick in a few weeks was amazing. As far as what to do with the discarded algae if the herbivores in the system won't eat it I know of farmers in Hawaii who have used an invasive species of macroalgae called "gorilla ogo" for compost on their crops. They apparently had no problem with using it according to the article I read. I would like to know if they pre-rinsed it or not but besides that I think this could really work.

I know alot of great aquarists are in austrailia so if you guys have any info/input abut this idea it would be greatly appreciated. Like I said, gotta love this forum.

Just need to know what I can grow in one. And what are the little insect like things that are white and live in the live rock. And so far are too darn fricken fast for me to get a photo of. So far I've got a little footage of a white darting thingie.

Are you saying the planktivores would eat the nuisance crustaceans? Sounds good.


If you had a freshwater AP sytem with tilapia (legal in HI, I understand) you could dump the algae in with them as a feed supplement. Some (maybe most for all I know) micro-algae is high in omega3, so it would improve the nutritional value of your fish.

here are some salt loving vegetables that are considered as culinary succulent:
Limonium vulgare:
http://www.floralimages.co.uk/plimonvulga.htm
Salicornia europaea, syn. Salicornia brachystachya (G.Mey.) König
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salicornia_europaea
Brassica maritima or crambe maritima
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/p ... /236.shtml
beta maritima
http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php ... s+maritima
Salsola (Oka Hijiki)
http://www.scrops.com/Salsola.htm
sea aster
http://www.scrops.com/Aster.htm

Crops Suitable for Cultivation in Saline Soils -
Barley, Sugarbeet, Cotton, Mustard, Rice, Maize, Redgram, Greengram, Sunflower, Linseed, Sesame, Bajra, Sorghum, Pumpkin, Bitterguard. Beetroot, Guava, Asparagus, Spinach, Coconut, Grape, Datepalm, Pomegranate.
http://aaqua.persistent.co.in/aaqua/for ... hread=7051

frank