Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,

I am about to kick start a small setup using goldfish. Is there any issues using the standard, gold fish flakes you get from your local aquarium shop?

JN

Goldfish food is designed to keep them alive in an aquarium with minimal nutrient value to your plants.

Other than that, no issues.

I would look at:

1. skipping the food and let the goldfish forage

or

2. skipping the goldfish and peeing in a different bottle each day and pouring each bottle in after aging for a week

Nah.... just feed the goldfish feed....

Adding humonia, or any other ammonia source into a tank with fish... is fraught with danger...

My blue barrel system runs off yabbies most of the time....

Hi Rupe, note my second suggestion....I wouldnt advise peeing into a tank with fish either...

Noted VLT.... but even pouring aged urine... which has converted the urea to ammonia.. into a tank with fish... could be disastorous, especially if ammonia levels/pH were already borderline...

It really doesn't take many fish to run an aquaponics system....

It's just that most people want to run as many fish as possible...

As Rupert said, It doesnt take many fish.

Have a look at my micro system (see the link below). For quite a few years now I've just had 6 goldies in there and fed them nothing but fish flakes.
Most often I dont even feed them every day
it just ticks over slowly and feeds about 4-5 lettuces just fast enough to peel a couple of leaves each day for lunches, and a couple of herbs for cooking with.
it's more like an edible water feature in the bbq area

Yup. Don't add urea to a stocked tank.

Slightly disagree with the number of fish part. Even time I test, my NitrAtes are very low even with 150 SP fingerlings.

My nitrates are zero... in all my systems.... just means the plants are using them all up.....