Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,
In my planned system I want to do tropical fish (in my case most likely for Mbuna but I am also considering guppies).
I think that the approach to systems for these types of fish are a bit different to those for culinary fish and therefore this thread.
For example I am planning a flood and drain system based on 1000 l FT and 600 l GB. I believe I can be pumping for 30-40 mintues and maybe down to about 200 l in the FT without harming the 50-100 Mbuna that I will have in there; a lot of that will just go through the overflow...but you will prob not get away with that in a trout or baramundy system.
SOOOOO...I am asking that people who have done systems with small fish types and/or the typical aquatium fish share their knowledge here.
Cheers,
KarelM
PS: Before people start ranting about goldfish, they are essentially carp and if you have yours in a small 1000 L container go to a carp farm and get a 5kg carp and put it in there...and then decide if you are comfortable with calling goldfish small fish!!!
PSS: If you want to debate this point please message me and lets start a new thread!

My small system orignally comprised of all tropical aquarium fish - worked fine. Found them flopping about in 2 inches of water a couple of times, as you do with a new system

Flopical fish OBO ...

OBO,
What "flopical fish" did you use? Did you struggle to get them up to a high enough biomass to produce enough nutriants?
Cheers,
KarelM

I started with guppies. But over winter most died and one got sucked into a pump. Now run with goldies in the small system. In the larger system I had some of them large(up to 30cm) goldies and silvers. Out door systems lose a lot of guppies unless you have very mild winters.

Duff, white clouds (live bearers like guppies) will handle lower temps, I have a friend in the hills north of melb who has them breeding in a completely neglected pot on her verandah, with just waterlillies for company...
Every 1nce in a while 6months to a year, she nets a handful and puts them in another pot.

No biofilter, no airation. Amazing fish really...

My fish were only outside for the summer + start of the system - then the cats got wind of it, and it got cold - so they went back inside.

I got this growth:



From this many fish:



There are a few goldfish there too, but the little tropical aquarium fish did a fair bit of eating too.

Any sort of fish load that requires a filter + pump, that requires regular cleaning, will work well in AP.

Aquarium place was telling me that they had big loses over winter but because they breed so fast the number catch up by the time they want any. But this was in a dam.

White cloud mountain minnows I did not think of. They can handle low tempratures and are hardy fish that like a slightly higher pH.
They are not livebearers but eggscaterers. Some growth in the bottom of the fishtank is good because they eat their own eggs. You could also place "egg crating" on the bottom for the eggs to fall through.
Cheers,
KarelM