Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I live in Gainesville FL. I have been messing around with gardening for a while and considered doing a aquaculture setup a few years ago. The more I read, the more I got to thinking and figured why not use hrdroponics as a biofilter for the aquaculture system. After researching more I came across this site and now I am really excited about get something setup.

I plan on doing a 6'x3' lined pond (400-500 gal?) or try to get a tank around the same size for talipia
and have atleast 627 gallons of grow beds.

i am having a hard time deciphering the 2:1 ratio on grow beds if anyone can explain that to me. in my case would it mean i need 800-1000gallons of gb or 200-250? Also is the ideal depth 1'?

My primary concept behind doing this is to explore small scall farming, in hopes to move up to 2-5 acres in a few years with my family. Most of my family have farms or gardens so i figure this is a good step to keep my family growing our own stuff and educate my kids.

thanks for having me.

Hi Bigdaddy, and welcome.

Welcome BigDaddy!

The 2:1 ratio is for grow bed volume to fish tank volume, and for max density of fish in the fish tank. Most of us run less than that ratio, but most are not pushing max occupancy in the fish tank either. You would then need 1000 gallons of gravel for a 500 gallon fish tank, if you wanted to stock at the max.

AP is a great way to garden, you will find that everything grows fast and well in an AP system. You are not limited to just leafy greens either, despite what you might read about other ways of doing it where the solids are rmeoved from the system rather than left in the gravel. Other than a couple mineral deficiencies that can be easily dealt with (adding iron or potassium as needed) the plants will be very happy.

Other ways of doing AP make it seem like it is suited only to leafy greens. Gravel beds are more versatile than the deep water culture methods you may have seen. To prove the point I grew only fruiting plants this Summer and they did very well. I grew green peppers, tomatoes (many), a wayward pumpkin, cantalopes, and broccoli in mine. Green beans didn't work well but that may have been watering/location issues.

thanks for the warm welcome, and very insightful info.

So if I am getting my math correct, If i put up to a 500 gal fish tank in and I should be able to support it with the 747 gallons of growbeds and that should accomidate up to roughly 175 fish.

I am really excited to attempt to grow the non leafy vegtables that Dave mentions.My wife and kids arent real big salad eaters, but we can tear up some other veggies. Fortuniatly I have the famly insite of what plants require what nutrients and this website to help me along with this attempt.

That's the max stocking density you could possibly acheive with the max ratio of growbed:tank....

And that probably requires the system to "mature" over a period of time... right alongside with your knowledge and experience...

Doesn't leave a lot of room (or time) to move if anything hiccups.... and you have to know how to react and the timeframe you have in which to do so....

As DD says... most of us run stocking densities less than the "max".... and I'd encourage you to do so... initially... you can always ramp things up over time...

Welcome to the crazy world of AP Bigdaddy....

Yes, I hope to initially put in the beds, and the fish tank with about 50 fish, get everything going and balanced and work up to about 150 fish. By that point I hope to decided if I want to expand my grow beds (I have the space)

I highly doubt I would even attempt this , if it werent for this website. The chemisty and variables are just way to broad for me to just jump into this like I wish I could.

thanks for the feedback.

You old life has ended, welcome to your new AP existence

Hi and Welcome. There is no escape, you will be assimilated

I'm not too far away, Just a little further south within "central Florida". Do ya like Catfish? I would probably go for them as your first fish in the system if you like them (that way you don't need to worry as much about keeping the water warm for something like tilapia your first season.)

My big system started out as a hole in the ground lined with pond liner that I'm guessing is in the area of 600+ gallons. I now have about 1000 gallons worth of fish tanks hooked to that system and probably over 1300 gallons worth of gravel in flood and drain grow beds. We have Catfish as large as 3 lbs and over 100 tilapia though most of them are not very big yet. Tomatoes, basil, kohlrabi, parsley, hot peppers, onions, okra, and all sorts of greens and salad stuff have been good growers in my system so far.

Do lots of reading here, this forum has a huge amount of into that can help you decide what sort of system design might work best for you.

Welcome, to our madness, sorry to say, there is no cure.

Stick with tilapia as long as you can maintain water around 80F. You can do higher stocking density and the fish are easier to keep.

It is a balance between water temp and the stocking density you want to keep.

If your system is gonna be out doors and you do not have it covered by greenhouse, you will probably not be able to maintain water over 70 F north of Orlando without some sort of heating. (I'm just north of Orlando and my main tank is in ground which does help keep the water a little warmer in winter but it will not work miracles. During the last cool snap my water was well down into the 60's F.) I am now working on greenhousing in much of my system for the winter to try and keep my water over 70 F. At 70 F the tilapia are hardly eating.

Channel Catfish are not difficult to keep here. Yes, they do require better O2 in the water than tilapia but that isn't usually a problem in Aquaponics if you are running a continuous pump.

Another bonus about Channel Catfish here in FL is there isn't that legal ambiguity that Tilapia have here. I believe there is only one primary place in Florida you can buy tilapia fingerlings without an aquaculture permit and they don't ship. There are many places you can get catfish fingerlings and they will often ship them as well. Now, if you have an aquaculture permit, disregard this issue.

Don't get me wrong, tilapia are great, I've got them. I've also got the catfish. I like em both. Tilapia are a bit better for high stocking density provided your water stays very warm. Catfish like more flow/better aeration but will survive cool water much better.

Great answer TCLynx! You hit the major pros & cons right on the head.

If you can get Blue Tilapia (O. aurea) they can survive, but not grow in water as cold as 40F. There is a place in South Florida to get fingerlings I've dealt with and can vouch for them.
http://www.miami-aquaculture.com/tilapia.htm
They also sell prawns (m. rosenbergii) and with cage culture you can grow them together, but they need 60+ to live.

Blue Tilapia (at least in tank culture) may be able to survive temps below 53 F but their immune systems will probably not recover and they will be likely to die from other infections. In the wild, I'm sure we have some that survive all sorts of things but it is difficult to document exactly how cold the water actually gets in some of those springs since ground water down here is relatively warm compared to the air and surface water.

As far as miami aquaculture, I doubt they can sell tilapia fingerlings (other than blue tilapia) to anyone in Florida unless they can provide proof of the aquaculture permit. I don't remember for sure but I believe I checked out their web site ages ago and found I couldn't buy from them without getting a permit (and at that time I didn't know what was involved in getting the permit.)

If some one wishes to drive over to Morning Star Fishermen, http://www.morningstarfishermen.org/index.html, blue tilapia can be gotten and at least when I went, they were quite happy to show me how to determine the gender of the tilapia.

My catfish were gotten from http://www.floridafishfarms.com/

With all fish farm places, one needs to call before going since their schedules tend to be erratic and e-mails rarely get answered.

thanks for the warm welcome and the great info. (especially TCLynx!)

I look forward to the future discussions. i have started gathering stuff to get setup. i am heading to the "farm" in southern IL next week and look forward to getting some conventional input on how stuff is grown and a conversation that will be had with a organic farmer that is in the family.

welcome big daddy. im about 50 miles north of you near branford florida. way too cold for tilapia unless you have a nice greenhouse and maybe even then you might need a heater.

it was 14 , 2 years ago up here.

anyway if you get up this way, do come by and see my AP madness im working on.

best regards brother, john