Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thought I'd share some pic's of my little test system

I'm running a 2100 lph pump for 15 mins every hour, the grow bed overflows into the green tub where i will grow snails for the Tilapia and duck weed and put my Pasific blue eyes in there to breed. the bath currently has a 5 inch Tilapia Butterkofuri, 20 speckled gobies and some other small ornimentals.
just running some reeds and house plants in this test system.

There's more than a few bathtubs been used in AP systems Bentaz... welcome to the world of aquaponics...

Welcome to the AP madness. Once you have grown a few tasty things and proven or disproven your design I'm sure you will be planning ways of improving and expanding.

I have 2 x 5000 lt tanks and so far 3 bathtubs and am planning a bigger system based on those, I am still reading up on the best way to to run it all.

I am looking at using bathtubs as grow beds with the overflow small hole type slow drains as I can rig them easily without having to drill overflows in the tubs, what do you all think about bathtubs as GB's? I figure they ary cheep and easy to plumb!

The 2 tanks will be 1 for fish one for a sump / yabbie tank, I have noticed people are pumping from their sump into their FT then overflowing that into their GB's. I want to over flow from the fish tank into the sump with a SLO so that any uneaten fish food or crap can go to the yabbies and then pump from the sump into the GB's and gravity feed the cleaned water into the FT, does that plan look like it will work to you guys?

I have plenty of time as I am moving at the end of the year and will not be building a big system till next year so by then I should have all my kit and plans sorted, with all your help!

You need about 40 more bathtubs then for 10,000 litres.

sounds good to me, not sure what the boss will say lol!

I'd plan on 8,000 litres or less. New rules say anything with more than 8,000 litres needs licensing.
May I suggest 7,999 litres give or take 999ml

That is correct for NSW, I will be building the system in victoria and I am still waiting for DPI VIC to post an actual number, might have to scale it back a bit more than even 7999 lts if i have to count all my fish tanks as well lol!

Actually the defining capacity that doesn't require a licence... is less than 10,000L... classed as a "hobbyist"...

Anyone that has a capacity over that... "and cultures those fish for the purpose of sale, will be required to hold an aquaculture permit issued by NSW DPI."

http://209.85.62.24/333/111/0/p178691/I ... try_2_.pdf

Although this was specifically released by DPI NSW... it is a national strategy... and has/will be adopted by all states...

Quote from the DPI NSW website.



I like the last sentence! but is one of our tanks the same as a farm dam? I cant see why it would matter, but the law can be pretty stupid sometimes.....

The key words are "Aquaculture as defined by the Fisheries Management Act 1994" ...

Which basically relate to raising for sale or commercial profit...

Aquaponics as such is not specifically catered for.... but under the old regulations that applied to "ornamental" fish keepers, regardless of whether or not you intended to sell any product... theoretically, you required a licence...

The new rule explicitly distinguishes "hobbiest" as defined by the under 10,000L clause...

Keeping fish or crustacea for any commercial purpose will require a licence... regardless of volume...

And while the clause relating to stocking of your own dam for private consumption indicates that you don't need a permit... you get covered under other aspects of the legislation as to where the dam is located, environmental aspects... and choice of fish species...

This weekend I bought 2 x 15w solar panels, a regulator and 2 bilge pumps, still got to get some batteries though, I wil try to get a couple of truck bat's from work untill I can afford some proper solar bat's, I'm excited

Good stuff on the solar Bentaz - Wifey decided to do something very similar.

I'm only new to AP, but I thought Tilapia in Qld where noxious?

they are!

yeah I cant wait to get the solar set up, what brand/ size pump are you getting?

The boss looked it all up online, I just gave them a quick run over thinking about what we had in mind, I think (fingers crossed) it'll all be good.

From memory the bilge pump is 12V, 5w, 4200lph, 5m head 1" outlet, designed for continuous running and the solar panel is 5w, 12V, ready to attach direct to battery. When it gets home we just have to get a batt and got the 1" pipework and valves all ready and waiting...

Obviously, I'll put the pics on our thread, when it's done