Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I think the seed of this silly idea started when I bought the roll on lawn from my uncle, at the same time I was setting up my first little system - I drove back with the lawn on the ute & saw all the sprinklers he needed to run in the middle of the day to keep his product alive -
I thought , "gee, what a waste of water , he should be catching it all after watering the lawn & keeping fish"

his lawn farm is a few acres though , so THAT was an insane idea , but I think 4x4 m is do-able . Heh , I'd just need to do it before anyone noticed & I got in trouble for digging up our new lawn ....

damn boris,

i would love to have you on my street. i reckon you may actually make us look normal. lol.

time for rehab i think mate. ap anonymous.

If sawed some on a sort of geotextile used for planted walls. Could just put a plastic liner and the geotextil on top and run the water in between the two layers, no problem with the mower then, and easy digging.

yep - ap anonymous for me definitely

I think its more the problem that Ive over-designed the two systems Im building & Im happy with the plans & progress . now my mind has to start going of on wierd tangents to keep itself interested while the work gets done . the only way to control it is with alcohol . which reminds me , Ive got to try to wear out my new byap stubbie holder so it doesnt look out of place in all the wonderfull photos Im going to need to take

KP - I dont think the media under the lawn will get disturbed - when I rolled it on it was really thick lawn , alot of root thickness ,plus its a hand mower that Ive got , if I hit a rock it'd be easy to feel & stop

I guess one big problem would be rabbit poop staying on the lawn after they do their share of the mowing ( rabbits get fed organic food - no nasties in their poop to get into the system )

sorry , Im rambling , and taking attention from more important threads with serious ideas in them

It was nice to see a new perspective and out of the box, i'd say very very very far from the box.
And to finish, tilapia can be fed rabbit poop and i'd say jades and silvers too, prepelleted food.

MUAHAHAHAH !!!!!!

thats what I needed to HEAR !

Silver perch can eat rabbit food ??! I got two rabbits , and thats ALL they do ALL day , poop poop poop , in nice neat little piles

rabbit poop -> fish -> fishwater -> lawn / lawn clippings -> rabbits for more poop / worm farm for more worms -> fish food ...
plus the rabbits eat half the waste from the veggies, the worms get the rest ....

Might need to train the fish to the poo, mixing it with real pellets to start.
the fish would be like: waa this one has a funny taste! Lets try another one.
The rabbit poop is not entirely digested so there is a fair bit of energy left in them. They try keeping them in cages over fish ponds in Asia and Africa. And completing the diet with worms would be the best. They usually do it with tilapia, but since jades and silvers eat lettuce and other greens I don't see why it wouldn't be the same for them. I think you'd the first to try with silvers. An AP lawn/rabbit/fish/bacteria/lawn precursor cycle.

The cycle is cyled and you'll be having a nice lawn to watch when drinking your beer in the evening.

train the rabbits to get me beer !
oh , no , thats what the kids for , heh

wouldnt keep them in cages over the tanks , thats disgusting practice , leadds to "sore hocks" , mangy feet and sad rabbits - they arent mine so Im not allowed to abuse ( or eat ) them . Maybe when this imaginary system has been running for a while I can step up production by getting a boy rabbit ..

I'll be there to see this system in the members system thread!
Cheers mate

Well, DD was going to make an AP patio...why not an AP lawn? DD even had some links to products that could form a support system.

I think that perhaps it would work, but making it into a fully fledged GB would be a waste of resources.
As has been said, most grass would go nuts (Unless you had bunnies to eat it all) so a shallow bed of gravel, or perhaps something like vermiculite or other finer material, that is flooded once a week makes a lawn that never needs work again.
Of course, if you had a rabbit factory, then you would probably want to set up the lawn as a flood multi times a day setup.

rabbit-poo as fish food...

I'm wondering how long you'd need to purge fish for, to ensure I wasn't like: "waa this one has a funny taste! "

Practicing for the olympics steve?

http://www.atlantiscorp.com.au/data/Con ... e_Tank.pdf

how about an underground sump/rainwater storage tank for backup and increasing system water volume, with a grass roof? Use sand as the growing media, and grow low water use grass with subsurface irrigation water at a very low rate. any overwatering will go back into the ap system, just like an ordinary growbed.
The only issue is dealing with overflow in winter.

the tank is made from cubes of lattice.
apparently you can drive trucks on this stuff...

Yeah I've seen that steem, very modular, looks tough as buggery. I'd forgotten about it, was at an exhibition last year I think. I reckon it'd handle a 4WD on it no probs. Maybe a truck, but as I recall it wasn't cheap.

I think it's a great idea... hard to do but still a great idea. I had a similar idea however it's on the roof of my house. Let me finish. I'm designing a subterranean house, full on underground, the cost involved in having 2ft of soil on top is expensive. When soil is wet it can more than triple in weight. Concrete and steel pillars inside the house then become too costly. I started thinking of a way to reduce the cost of this problem. Reduce the weight became the solution. So instead of soil on my roof I'm making about 10 channels running down the roof made of polystyrene blocks, inbetween the channels will be filled with perlite, which when wet is lighter than soil by a tonne or so per metre sq. Rain water can flow through these channels and be collected in a dam at the bottom of the property also reducing the weight of the water soaking into soil and staying there till it dries up. The channels will be 200mm high, the perlite inbetween will be filled to the same height. To stop the perlite blowing away in strong winds because of its light weight a top layer of river rocks about 200mm thick placed on top. I'm thinking of planting lavender or lemongrass on top instead of the good ol aussie cooch. nice smell and I can use the crops for essential oils. Has anyone thought of putting some PVC pipes on the roof to save space in the yard for an AP system? I think a few brackets and a ladder would be all you needed… lol. I think the same thing would be ideal for skyscrapers or apartment blocks with flat roofs.