Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Greetings all,
Well it looks like the Aquaponic bug finally caught up with us.
My name is Gary and my wife's name is Melissa. We live in Kelmcsott W.A.
We have been considering having a go at this for quite a while and have been lurking in the background reading all the wonderful posts and decided it is time to come out of the closet and let the chaos begin.
Melissa will be in charge of not killing the green things that grow in the gravel and I will be in charge of not killing the we beasties that dwell in the water . Except for harvest time of course, when I have permission to GO FISHING
As I know you all like pictures I thought I would try and include a mug shot of the new addicts. Before we start annoying you with all our questions. Hope to speak to you all soon.
Cheers Rawprawn.

Hay there and welcome

These two really got it right doing pictures right away. However they forgot the toes Just been a real lack of toes sneaking into shots lately it seems.

Anyway, glad you could join us.

G'day Guys

Welcome to the forum - there's certainly more info and help here than you'll find anywhere else in the world !

And yes, +1 on starting with photos straight away - looking forward to seeing your system develop.

Morning....

Great to see you on here, there's certainly no lack of information here for you to learn from. Good start... And you used my favourite smiley as well, this one is under used.

G'day Rawprawn ! Welcome to BYAP and dont forget to login to backyardfarming.com.au to benefit all the gardening info aswell because most of us are there also. What sort of system do you have?

Thanks for the link seamonkey. At the moment we don't actually have a system set up and running.
We just have lots of bits and pieces waiting to be put together in hopefully a viable working system. We had lots more but we got a clean up order from the council after I got carried away filling the front yard with IBC's, blue drums, railway sleepers, shade cloth, bird avairies, etc,etc.
The trailer was stuck in the drive with a flat tyre and I was so busy bringing more stuff home that I sorta boxed myself in Anyway what took me a couple of weeks to collect took me 2 months to find new homes for. Then we had to wait for Mr council man to say he was happy and then let things cool off for a while. That was a year ago, so now I'm gonna have to pull my finger out if I'm gonna get set up before trout time. So we are thinking maybe we should just start with a basic system from the BYAP shop, and then add and add and add to that. Anyway promise to post lots of pictures.

Welcome to the madness... I think the BYAP setups are good, nice and neat... proven...

If you do go with a basic setup, have a think about how you want to expand later as well.. if you are just going to add growbeds, it might be worth going with a bigger tank to start with. But if you are going to build a bigger better system and run the first system separately, then it doesn't matter...

Thanks for the advice.
I already have a 1000ltr FT and thought if I purchased the basic system I could join the two 1000ltr FT's together and use a IBC as the sump. This way I might be able to put new fingerlings in one tank whilst still harvesting marure fish from the other. This is when the system is established of course with hopefully three grow beds as time, and money permit. Was wondering if anybody could tell me where to get suitable gravel from close to the armadale, Kelmscott, gosnells area.
I thought of using half gravel and half Hydroton in the grow beds to try and keep costs down a bit.

Welcome rawprawn
I notice you both wear glasses based on a very scientific observation of your photo I would recommend that you start eating more carrots and fish have you heard of aquaponics!
But be warned it is very addictive
PS I also wear glasses but this is due to having terrible eyesight!

Pea gravel... go for those I believe to be 10mm big... similar size to the Hydroton... to save more money, some members have indicated they have 2/3 pea gravel and the last 1/3 to the surface as hydroton...

There is a gravel place next to BYAP... or Soil aint Soil...

I wouldn't go for anything less than 15mm...

Most hydroton is 8-16mm.... with most of it 10mm+