Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hey all.

i've been procrastinating over starting up a hydroponics system for a few months now and have come across the magic of aquaponics. this interests me!

i am desperate to start up my own vege patch. i have been keeping and breeding goldfish and siamese fighters for a couple of years now and would love to have a wonderful and useful pond amongst the lush hydroponic vege patch i am visioning in my head. aquaponics will be perfect (and reasonably chemical free i'd imagine).

so before i start drawing up plans of my new system i thought i'd check out the information available and find out a bit more about it.

i'm into keeping chooks, have a worm farm, recycle all of my kitchen scraps back into the garden and would love to move my fish hobby outside into nature where it belongs and have it become something useful (a complete all-in-one system). my goldfish are suitable for outdoors but not really sure the bettas would thrive, especially when winter comes.

my budget isn't huge but i do have a lot of odds and ends around i can put to good use (irrigation, lots of pipes etc). i just need a system which can sustain a moderate sized vege garden (feeding 2 veg loving adults). i'm not sure i'd like to keep barra or any other edible fish friend - i'd be too squeamish to kill, gut and eat the poor things so that side of things would be functioning solely as an ornamental pond i guess. of course if my vege needs ever outgrew my fish i'd definately be willing to switch to bigger edible fish, i'd just have to hire a contract killer to do the dirty work.

i'm renting so anything i do will have to be temporary in structure. i'm so glad i found aquaponics before i set about with hydroponics. now i'm off to search the forum for some inspiration!

Hi Fish, welcome!

There are plenty of folk on here who could help you with a "contract" it would all depend on how you would like the job done...

There are also plenty of small portable types of systems too. Have a look at Simmo's system, and I can't remember who else's at the moment.

In the meantime enjoy reading the forum, there's heaps of useful (and useless) information on here.

Jaymie

hi fish and welcome, good luck on your venture.Should be some good answers here.
C1

Hi FISH, I`m attempting the same as you at the moment,its a good way to find out the annoying stuff before going big(and more expensive)most of the stuff I have used has been free or stuff i already have from previous ponds.
Good Luck with what ever you decide upon