Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Has anyone had any experience with guppies as their primary fish for powering an aquaponics system? Any pros and cons.

Was heading down the Tilapia/Bass path but that idea doesn't seem to be progressing very fast. Almost had six Tilapia in the tank but they all died before they reached nirvana. At present our system is being powered by aged urine and the plants are doing quite well - but I had an offer of 80 guppies today from a local here in town.

We have a ~650l fish tank and 6x 75l grow bed buckets. The tank is a vertical water tank (about 1.5m deep) - one of my concerns is being able to see dead fish at the bottom of the tank. I was thinking some floating baskets to start with as mini "tanks" within the tank.

Any idea how many I should get given our system size - happy to under-stock but want enough nutrients for the plants to grow well? Also males or females or both?

Any thoughts/ideas appreciated.

Current system. Nb the tank is half buried in the ground.

You will need heaps of guppies. My only experience with them so far is to chuck them in a bucket with filtration just with water top ups and they were ok.

They may not have the pooping power needed for that amount of growing space unless you had hundreds/thousands.

From your response Zman guppies don't look like a great option. Guess I'll keep exploring other avenues. Thanks for your post.