Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks Rupe. That clears things up a lot. Are losses inevitable? Is that because of limits being pushed or just mother nature?

What a great discussion that has opened up here

Trout in winter while the Perch do bugger all.

Running Costs per year (so far)..

Power (wont change much) = $1500
Water (should be similar) = $1500
Food (will go up lots lol) = $1000 up to close to $3000 at full capacity.

I am already running all the pumps that will be running, and the water cost included the initial fill of both tanks, water consumption for the fish only runs at around 1000 litres per week. The grass gets more water than the fish tanks.

This system only needs to produce $10,000 per year to make costs and fish losses up. Thats only 1000 fish sales at the gate. Thats 20 fish per week. I did over 300 in two weeks last year. That was Trout, and Im pretty sure that Silvers are worth more than that at the moment ($30 per kg).

Even if I only do 50 per week, thats still 2600 fish, which I should be able to do - if I need extra tanks to do it, I will get them. If it turns out I need a solids filter, well I will get one of them too. Thats the whole point of doing this - no one has, and I want to see how it goes The vegies are a bonus.

At the moment my absolute biggest concern is actually getting the fingerlings in the first place.

I loose probably 2 fish a week out of the 2200 in the tanks at the moment.

As of today, this system owes around $25,000. Around 5/6ths of the system components are already purchased. Only have some IBC's and some more plumbing bits to buy.

Damn these people that don't have to allow for any labour costs...

Not including Labour I assume?

I think getting fingerlings all year round will be a problem?

I would recommend a back up generator in case of an extended blackout, otherwise you will be adding to your costs and labour?

Yeah, Im free lol

A generator is sorta planned, probably just a really cheap one for starters, only got to provide 800 watts.

To OBO and everyone else who has participated in the discussion thus far - thank you for sharing all that you have. I hope it helps others who are looking at commercial ventures.

I wish you all the best in your venture OBO.

I might not read carefull enough.

OBO, ara you planing to expand your system and connec tham all, or you plannig to add some more separate systems?

Expand the current system - this was the plan all along. Currently way under filtered.

Im proud to be a kalgoorlie-ite. All the best champ, this is the one youve been training for!

OBO, how easy for you is it to get a large chunk of pond liner if you need to expand into raft or water plant beds? Might not be necessary if you keep the veggies using up the nutrients ahead of the fish but might be handy to have the trick up your sleeve. I found during cool weather that watercress uses up a huge amount of nutrients (lucky for me it likes hard water) and perhaps it would be a good income stream for you since I've heard it has a high selling price.

It grows well in shallow constant flood beds or trays and may well be a big part of the reason Growing Power gets away with the stocking they do (than and they grow tilapia.)

I think with our heavy rain, winds and dust storms would make a raft system too much of a challenge in kalgoorlie. I wouldnt try it anyway. OBO's yard is very open and susceptible to the elements.

Which means he'd be likely to have similar problems, or worse... to those that BYAP has had...

Bummer... at $4000, it would have been worth bringing it all over OBO... might still be...

Are there any plans to add more tanks, or are you just going to use the two you have? Are you still using any IBC's as tanks?

Still got the 4 IBC's as fish holding tanks, looking very closely at some 9000 litre tanks as well.

I would get those tanks from BYAP instead, as well as the digester and seperator, but Joel doesnt want to split the items

Hi OBO,

Have you thought about keeping the new expansion as a separate system?

So that if you have a system failure or some disease go through you won’t loose all your fish.