Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello all,

So at my new house that I am moving into next month they have one side of the house that they put pavers in, it's fairly good size spot and I am thinking of doing a cinderblock and pond liner "tank" so to speak. 8 feet long, 3 feet wide and 3-4 feet tall, will hold 720 gallons or so. I was thinking I would put the growbeds on top at first to help shade the tank since I am in AZ and put up some shade cloths if needed.

The space I am putting it in would have room for grow beds on the side as well.

So what would you put in this fish wise, I was thinking some pacus or maybe make a turtle enclosure in one part with a lot of little fish and separate that from the rest of the tank and have the rest of my poop suppliers ( hehe). I would imagine this amount of water would support a lot of plants. I would like to eventually be supplying local restaurants and small grocery stores with produce.

So what you do with this set up?

Chaos

Hi Chaos:

I am planning to make a system that looks more like a patio garden/pond than a set of separate containers. The gravel would be at ground level and wide enough to walk over. The latest incarnation of it is that a 4' x 8' x 2' deep rectangular sump would be in the middle of the gravel patio in a hole, with 4x4s and wire mesh all above for filling up with climbing plants.

Patio stuff starts on this page, comes and goes over my thread up to the present:
viewtopic.php?p=106266#p106266

Oh, for fish can you raise tilapia in AZ? Don't turtles transmit salmonella?

I think that only happens with baby turtles...I know that is somewhat distorted, I thought that that is only a problem if it gets on the leaves? Salmonella that is.

DAVE,

Awesome system!!

Dave!!!

Awesome system!

Not sure if I want Tilapia as I have read here several times they are prolific breeders.

If I could make sure I have all one gender I would do it, but not really wanting to worry about offloading fish.

you wouldn't really be off-loading fish, just growing them up and eating them

You can get all male tilapia from a number of places. Depending on your views, you may want to verify if they are all male through breeding or through hormones. Some suppliers breed specific lines/sexes to create all male fingerlings, others do it by introducing hormones as fry. It's tougher to get the mixed sex fingerlings but the all male are available in several places.

Lol Spam Assasin,

Grill them up and make fish tacos. Thanks Healing Diva, I will have to poke around.