Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah I expected that would be the issue. A few times I have discussed with LFS owners the energy efficiency that could be achieved by sharing water and having a central gas heater, and their response was the same.
It always comes down to disease. Other than disease spreading, it's difficult to dose just one tank with medication. Also many fish at an LFS prefer slightly different water.

well it is about time i put my reasons in here too

I have been dirt veggies for quite awhile but have found that i use a lot of water over summer and being on and off water restrictions hasnt helped

so naturally i started looking for a more water economical way to grow veggies

and here it is .. aquaponics

i still have a dirt garden and here it is i put this in about 6 weeks ago after moving house just before christmas

Well for me... I always like growing plants and fishing. But the problem was i´m bloody bad at both.
So one of my mates had a system up and running and handed over the web page details of BYAP for me to have a look at.
Now every container looks like a FT or GB.

Oh yeah... I´m still shit at fishing. LOL

I lived in Weipa, Arukun and Burketown in Far North QLD and missed the fishing and the Barra and whatever I grew either died from lack of water or was washed away in the wet season!

Still missing the barra as I have SP!

I got separated and thought I should have a hobby.
I have always been interested in fish, so I Google'd "backyard aquaculture" .
Guess what came up?.
I bought Joel's book and before long I was addicted to AP
I had never managed to grow a single vegetable in my life...
Now... I have more than I know what to do with

Do you need more ideas scottt??

I was keeping trout... and pouring shiploads of water on the garden,
and tonnes of compost, peet, chook poop, sheep shat & fert for africa,
and do it all again next year....

Then I saw GA and was sold, met Joel & joker & B2 and the rest is history....
thanks again Joel and the crew

Sounds like my story too Ivan.

I saw Gardening Australia and after doing all of the above said to Eddy (dear husband) "That has got to be the way to go" and the rest, as they say is history.

I have always had a fish tank and a pond and have been interested in fish my partner Susie does not eat meat so we only cook vegetables and fish. Susie wanted a vegie garden and I was keen on the idea of aquaculture as my uncle had a small aquaculture business years ago.
I saw the feature on Gardening Australia and decided it made sense to go down that path. We are both very new to gardening and these vegies we are eating now are the first ones we have ever grown.

Well you certainly have set high standards for us to aspire to It seems that there were quite a few folks saw that episode of G.A. [The show ain't the same without Peter Cundall though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cundall].

I have a long narrow strip of gravel gardenbed along the side of our swimming pool, I have been wondering what to do with Now I Know

May well have to hit you up for more info when the time comes

For me, the appeal was the ability to have home-grown food in a high density urban area. I suppose you can get similar growth densities with straight hydroponics, but the cyclical nature of AP makes more sense to me than the run-to-waste of hydro.

Nowadays, there's all this talk of food-miles and so on, but they're way behind the curve set by AP

That's funny, I have yet to see how AP can save you money, but down the track maybe
I was actually looking for sites on aqua culture had never heard of AP but wanted to grow marron and other WA natives and firstly stumbled across AP HQ then looking for a WA based AP business found BYAP my first system was a trial and error thing (and still is) and the small bath tub system was to keep the missus happy and give her something to play with, now the bug is well and truly set in, I like the idea of fresh real veggies and regular fresh edible fish (don't know how coles can stuff up veggies and fish ) and yes the aging dehydrated brain needs to keep active as well

haha Nocky, I'm pretty sure we haven't saved any money yet either! Especially after the $170 seed order last night

Used to have ducks and invented a version of AP to try to clean the water (didn't use nearly enough growbed).

Have grown things since childhood....veggies, raspberries, apples. Wife fell for me when I told her "I like to grow things."

Anything is twice as interesting to me if it involves water.

We have an above-ground pool and I have always wanted to swim with the fishes, but was trying to find a way to have a natural pool that would be clear and nice and ended up finding aquaponics (Speraneo etc) and, a week or so later, backyardaquaponics, and was well and truly hooked. The concept of natural cycles, permaculture, and living a bit more lightly on this earth have always been terribly appealing to me, even if some others around me are less.....enthusiastic.

And I had gotten really tired of fighting the crabgrass that is taking over everything, gophers, nutritional deficiencies in the dirt garden!