Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So this is only Aquaponics in that there are fish and plants living in a nicely balanced system of an ornamental pond.
It's pretty though so I thought I'd share some pictures.
It was my first experience of pond building (or should I say re-building as some one else started it but didn't know what they were doing.)
The set up is an in ground lined pond with lots of plant shelf all the way around the edges. There is a skimmer box with filter and pump that feeds a water fall type biofilter tub. This pond is only about 24 inches deep at the deepest. There is plenty of aeration that I've found earth worms surviving in the muck around some of the pond plants. The system gets shut down for the winter (it's in Alden, Michigan, USA around zone 4/5) There is no pumping/ice melting or aeration for the winter as there is no power at that house in the winter. All the largest gold fish were originally purchased cheap back in 2002. There is rarely more than one lost per year and sometimes none lost even with the pond freezing over.

Here are some pictures from before I did any work on the pond this summer. There was a bit of a problem with string algae but it is already starting to clear from the barley extract treatment they used before I arrived. Been having a problem with the pond loosing more water than desirable so I need to check into that.

Now here are some pictures after I got in the pond to adjust the water fall (had been splashing too much water.) I also mucked out as much leaves/debris and string algae as I could to give the fish better chances of surviving next winter. I found a couple places where things had shifted and the liner was smushed down allowing water out of the pond at a lower height than desirable. Got all muddy while re-adjusting the liner so now the pond will stay at the desired height. I even installed a float valve so the pod can automatically top up.

oops, I meant to attach pictures to that last post. Here are some pics after the re-work of the falls and the muck out of the pond, much clearer water.

very nice, it's good to see visiting wildlife there too

I love how clear the fish are after the work you did. Nice job! And, beautiful setup. Some day soon...

Love the duck

The rubber duck is actually the float for the thermometer. I like it too. Couldn't find the frog to get a picture and I missed the cousin's toes but I tried.

But... but... but...
There aren't any pics of you doing the mucking out!
We gotta learn by example, after all...

Well, in a true AP system, I would be pumping the muck into the grow beds instead of mucking it out. Lucky for me, no one thought to grab the camera to get a picture.

...and would you have put them up here if they had (yeah right )

nice pics of the pond TC

It's a beautiful setup, is there any indication that smaller solids are moving through the filter? I'm looking at a fairly similar pond, although I think it's less mature, and thinking it could use at least one small growbed.

They have a skimmer box where the pump is with a filter pad in it. That Filter gets cleaned every few days as it would otherwise be clogged with solids and the poor pump would run dry.

If there were some way to let the pond skim directly into a grow bed before pumping up to the water fall, that would be the really cool way to go!

The bioslime that builds up seems to grab any fine solids - I can collect a glass full of water from the growbed returns in my system, and its crystal clear, even when the source water is very murky.

If you had a way of driving a small functional wooden water wheel to both skim the water and dump into the growbed and the growbed to a sump where a pump can be located to move the water for fountains or airation. Just a wild thought. most water wheels use the water to drive the wheel. I have a lot of trees and was trying to think of a way of getting the leaves out of a small pond in the front yard.

Are you going to add a few growbeds to this?
I am curious about adding GBs to existing large outdoor ponds, as i know someone who wants me to do it to there ornamental pond. If the growbed was lower than the pond, the surface debris could overflow into it.