Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It is hard to compute the exact size of our farm pond. My best guess is somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of an acre. It is in the neighborhood of 12 feet deep in the deepest part. It has a year-round spring, and also get the watershead of about 25 acres. It was stocked when we bought the place, and we have stocked it ourselves. I had been using herbicide in it to control the algea, but I stopped over a year ago. I am hopeful that it will produce enough chum to help with the feed cost. I will post some pictures when I can.

I can only read pictures (lazy) just skimmed through, why do you need a sump? can you just pump from fish tank to GB, gravity to Fish tank?

That was my first design, but I didn't have enough drop to pull it through. I am reusing a jacuzzi tub on my back deck, so everything is at the same level. Without tearing up the deck and digging holes, I was stuck. Since I only have about 12 inches of top soil, even digging would only helped a little. So I pu two 50 gallon barrels under my GB's to capture the flood water. Then, at the next flood cycle, the water in the sumps flows into the FT at the same time the water flows out of the FT to the GB. By this method, I can maintain adequate water level's in the 150 gallon FT while flooding the GB. Complicated I know, but I really wanted to set this up on the deck so that I can build a heated greenhouse around it. The lets me us the house heat, including the clothes dryer exhaust to heat the greenhouse, and lets me keep the AP garden year-round. The plan is to have the main pump/filter, the sump pump and the water heater to all be on the same timer with a 45/135 minute flood/drain cycle, round the clock, for a total of 8 complete cycles each 24 hour period.

Be cautious with anything from the pond if you are going to eat specially after using herbicide, they are the worst chemical poisons you can find in water. What kind of stuff did you use? and what was the dosage?

If you take fish from it you'll be eating herbicide for sure, and if you'll be increasing the dosage of ti if you feed from feeder fish from it.
I'd suggest to have an analyse of the pond done before anything, just to be sure. And find on the net the time it needs to be degraded in the environment. Usually from normal farming to organic farming you'll need three years to be certified organic, to let all the pollutants degrade themselves.
Did you spray anything on the watershead of the pond?

I've checked your website out, nice cows you have there.
Couldn't you find a way to use the pond to some sort of big simple ebb and flow patch where you could produce a very good quality food for the cows, still after checking out the herbicide residues.
Just an idea i had was to do a big patch of liner with the sides lined up on 30 cm wood and lots of gravel, one big drain and a timer on pump, planned on twice a day would probably produce two full batches of luzern or other winter cow food in the summer period. I know my mind goes pretty far once started but 200 M3 of enriched water would produce a lot of winter food and be a bit lighter on green algae.

Because as I suppose the rain falls on the pastures and drains all the poo in the pond at the bottom, this enrichment of the pond makes it go very green and heavy. There is no way you have to fertilise the pond but maybe increase the air supply which will help the biomass in the pond to digest and process the cow poo in fish.

And before spring it could be good to spray lime on the surface, it will help the bottom mud harden and will reduce the fertiliser available in mass like actuallly, it would let it be released slowly and be better for the total biomass production of the pond. The lime dosage is around 80-100 kg of lime for your pond.

Have you thought of a methaniser to use the cow dung for energy? I've had a friend who was developping it in Tanzania, it worked daily with 1 bucket of cow dung and 1 bucket of water in the digester and produced a continous gaz for the houses (cooking for 15 pers in each familly demands non stop cooking) and even for a motor to produce electricity, i'll get my files out if you want. They were doing cheap systems that orked pretty efficently in cold parts of tanzania.
There is a report on methaniser in the download part of the forum also.

I'm sorry, still lots to read but you have a great potential of energetic independance that i'd love to have.

And i now understand the Beltie Bandit stuff

The stuff I used on the pond is listed below. It is supposed to be safe and non toxic in the manner I used it. It has been over a year, and the moss/algae has been growing up a storm since then.

Cutrine®-Plus Algaecide/Herbicide

Patented, concentrated liquid algaecide/herbicide contains chelated copper which stays in the solution to continue controlling a broad range of algae well after application. Great for use in lakes, potable water reservoirs, ponds, fish hatcheries, and many others. Waters treated with Cutrine- Plus may be used immediately after treatment for swimming, fishing, livestock watering or irrigation. For best results, use Cutrine-Plus to remove unwanted vegetation, then apply Aquashade® as maintenance.

I am really interested in the methane stuff. I would love to be able to produce electricity with it. I have plenty of cow dung. I swear that more comes out than goes in, but I can't prove it.

Check this out but i suppose that you should be right unless you move the bottom to much. Copper kills water insects very well too. There is still a caution for fish on this website
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/WQ/pesti ... 87_001.pdf
It should be alright i suppose after a year without, and you won't have any trouble with mildew in the AP system


I'll get a thread on tonight on biodigesters for methane production. And the magic with it is that you can use slightly modified generators supposed for petrol to produce the electricity. I'm not to aware of the generator thing but i can give you some infos on how to build a backyard methaniser.
Have you seen stuff on water generators on the net.

For the green algae problem, your pond is to much enriched with the water shed, the nitrates must be really high in it in spring.
Could you do rafts on the pond and grow veggies on them? It would reduce the eutrophisation of the pond (the overgrow of biomass due to excess fertilisation of a water body).

I've done it here on pallets with passive hydroponics and it had great results. The aztecs used to produce there food that way so i tried and it worked fine. I did it on stands but wanted to do it on floating rafts to keep up with the water level change through summer. I'm sure it would reduce grandly the filamentous algae and feed you at the same time.

I've got lots of ideas for all different kind of environment friendly solutions, and actually can't use them to much so i try to give them, i hope it interests you.

Do you have a dock on your pond? If I had a pond with a dock I would fill it with plants and just use a simple pump up to the dock then draining right back down into the water again. i.e. use the dock as a big grow bed.

Amaca, they sure do interest me. I was forced to retire for health reasons, so I find my with a lot of time on my hands, although I can't do anything very strenuous. We bought this farm so that we could be more self-reliant, and my daughters and their families also live on the farm with us. With three households to support, we become our own best customer whether it is raising beef, chickens, dairy or fish and vegies. I have had so much fun designing and building this farm from scratch. I plan to use pond water in a trickle system for my orchard and vineyard. Thanks for all of the ideas.

Dave, I had thought about growbeds alongside the pond. The animals still use the pond for water and cooling off, so would have to find a way to fence off the vegies, or they will get grazed. I don't have a dock, although that is definately on the list, just not the top of the list.

You could also anchor a floating vegetable raft out there. I wish I had a pond...

I was thinking that you could do grazable plants, that will do more biomass to produce cow dung with all the uses it can have as a fertiliser or a biocarb.
Drip feed miscanthus, which is one of the easiest plant to grow to do fire wood. Grows like sugar cane with roots in soil and cutting the top part of it. It is one of the best fire woods and the one that grows the best. Check it out on the net, haven't anything on it but what i've read a while ago.

I look forward to seeing pictures of this system in operation. I have been eyeballing those cattle feeders for some time now. They just scream grow bed. I was unsure how they would hold up to a load of gravel. Someone said they would collapse.

hey beltie, check this one out, regulates algal growth and gives such good production results
http://www.equatorinitiative.net/files/ ... _China.doc

Hope you'll be finding it as good as i've found, cheers mate.

Okay, weatherman says that Monday will be sunny and reasonably warm, so I am on a mission to get the up and running on Monday. I have everything I need, so I have no more obstacles. Pictures will follow. On a side note, we had not planned on growing Talipia because of the water needing to be heated. Then I researched them, and found out that their scientific name is Oreo------somthing. Well, we raise Belted Galloway cattle, and as you can see from my avatar, they are oreo cookie cows. So I may have to modify my plans some. Maybe during the summer when the water is warm, I grow them, and then a different on in the winter. I also hear that they can take colder water, but the just don't grow, so may we just don't plan on harvesting any through the winter months, but just let them fuel the greenhouse. Lots to think about.

Finally got the system up and running. Here are the pictures of the Fish Tank. I have a bunch that show the mess I made getting all of the plumbing done in one day. I haven't hooked up the timer yet, that can wait for another day.

Here is a picture of the Growing Beds. They turned out pretty nice. I still have to dress tham up with wooden frame and hand rails. Basically, the two beds give me 50 sqft of growing surface. I plumbed in three additional lines that I will use for the vertical beds, and maybe a smaller 4 ft feeder trough that I am trying to free up.