Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I know nothing of salt Aquariums and wondered if we have fishy afficianados who do.

I hear it's a lot harder. Why?

What are the key factors in salt water health?

Are there any highly expensive additives you must have?

I am turning fresh water Aqua into a lifestyle career move, I though saltwater Aqua would make a very cool new hobby once I've done the homework.

Abalone, other shellfish, several seaweeds and snapper. Feed the seaweed to all the shellfish, shellfish except abalone to the snapper.

Still looking at species I've found some excellent documents on feasibility of many marine species.

Salt water is a whole new ball game and I haven't even tried mucking in this area.... Have read a few articles and it sounds interesting though.

paradise aquafarm just outside Cairns will be experementing with this to a degree, growing something which is refered to as green caviar (some sort of special see weed)... but they have huge facilities and a very professional setup.

I read an article about Tailor made fish farms doing salt water aquaponics, piping the water from the ocean Sounds really interesting. (just came back from weekend camping & have 176 new posts to read!

and I worry when I log on ans there are 20 or so...

Hi all,

I'm a small time user of this forum because of big time constraints... but, I think it's fantastic to know there are so many pseudo-scientists out there like myself.

This year, I'll be on an overseas Nuffield farming scholarship to study the commercial production of macro-algae (seaweeds) with a focus on integrated systems.

My background's mainly focused on marine hatchery production of microalgae, molluscs and to a lesser extent, fish. Therefore, I'll mainly look at propagation and culture techniques for seaweed species. I've grown 2 species of seaweed on a small scale at abalone farms in southern Australia.

At home, I have a 5000L fibreglass tank with only 50 silver perch at the moment growing celery in 2 round growbeds. I will post some photos when it looks respectable. Excess water is used on berry plants. I'm into permaculture and so I prefer the idea of f/w ap at home and s/w commercial, but would grow s/w fish if we had more room here.

Anyway, if there's interest out there in s/w ap, I'm happy to pass on what I find on the scholarship as well as the (informal) research I've done so far.

A.B.

Welcome Adam... I'm sure you'll find people interested in possible saltwater AP....

There are species of saltwater fish that are attractive to recirc systems, but the problem (from an AP perspective) has always been a saltwater plant species... and lack of knowledge of how the grow them....

I wanted to give seaweed a go if I can find fish I like.

Been a lot of work down on the Nth Coast at NatFish Trenayr campus, with Mulloway and Yellow Tailed Bream Duff....

Was hoping for barracuda. Bream sounds good. Maybe I should try and grow the seaweed first and see if there are any problems in getting it to grow.

The seaweed Ulva (lettuce weed) is very easy to grow- just collect some, dessicate it so it is semi-dry, add it to a tank (seawater) at and it will spawn. Spores will attach to a clean surface of a tank. Aeration is needed.

Some of the red seaweed species like porphyra (nori) which is used in sushi wraps may be harder to grow in home ap systems.

Mulloway are a very hardy fish and could possibly be obtained from Clean Seas at Arno Bay.

finding suitable plants is not a problem ,, just see what is being eaten these days. i don't know the name ..... but I believe is nick name is the sea asparagus,,, suddeny very popular throughout Europe ,, was once considered a weed.
Any number of molluscs for filtration , once again just choose from the hundreds avaiable.
Fish ..... want to check growth rates here ,, Snapper ,, I think not ,, growth rates have been dissapointing in recent trials.
Access to good quality seawater, species selection feed are as usual the keys for success.

Can anyone tell me what Sea Asparagus tastes like?

Could you run a saltwater ap system where you catch the evaporation, and run it into a separate growbed with freshwater plants? Or would the evaporation rid the water of nutrients?

Evaporation would strip ALL nutrients from the water.
Sorry,