Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hi all,

I'm a retiree living in Taipei Taiwan. Here in Taiwan commercial hydropinics, aquaculture are very popular and advanced. There are a few commercial ap setup which however are more of gardening or landscaping nature. Home ap setup is very rare. Initially I want to go for hydroponics as one of my hobbies. However when surfing the web for info I found this forum which has inspired me to go for ap instead. Now after a couple of months study I have decided to set up my own system which will consist:

- one frp 1500L fish tank, installed on the ground floor.
- 3 frp grow beds, size 170x110x32cm, to be installed on the balcony of 2nd floor. One to be filled with gravel and the other two using DWC.
- fish not yet decided, most likely tilapia.

Attached are a few pics which I have installed so far. I will certainly need your help and guidance whenever I encounter problems throughout the various processes. Meanwhile any advice or comment will be much appreciated.

cheers,
ty

Hey CTY,

Looks great! Keep it up, glad this forum inspired you! I have enjoyed being inspired by this forum as well.

Talk to you later,

Jeff C

Make sure that the weight of the GBs FT isnt enough to cause structural issues to the balcony.

hi Jeff,

Thanks. I assume you have already set up your system already? Am busy setting up mine these days. Just completed the set up of the grow beds as attached shown. Need to find gravel for one of the GBs. Will seek your advice as and when I encounter problems.

Cheers,
ty

hi Zman,

Thanks for the reminder. Indeed the weight of the ft was a concern at the beginning. Later I have decided to install it on the ground floor and only the GBs will be housed in the balcony of the 2nd floor. Plan to put in fishes and start planting in two weeks time if all goes well. Am very excited to see the result.

ty

Good work cty. You might need to import a test kit as i remember reading another member in taiwan had lots of issues getting an authentic one

Thanks for the info Zman. That's strange as various test kits are available in the market and I have just ordered one API freshwater 5-in-one test kit which will be delivered today. Am sourcing a refractometer to test the salt.

Looks good Cty, welcome to the forum. Look forward to seeing more pics

hi Faye,

Thanks. I have read many articles about your system. It's so impressive and enviable and I would be very glad if I can achieve 50% of your success.

cheers,
ty

Appreciate if someone can tell me whether one 500L gravel-filled GB (while the other two will be running DWC) is sufficient for a 1500L FT keeping max stocking of about 60-70 fishes of 500 gram? Thanks.

Cty you will need to base the number of fish you can keep by the amount of filtration. So in your case for 500L you will be able to keep 20-25 safely if you plan to harvest at 500g.

Thanks a lot for your advice Zman. Will follow this rule and see the result. My concern now is whether this number of fish can support the other two grow beds to be running in DWC. If not, I may need to reduce the DWC bed to 1 and make one more gravel bed. By the way, I filled tap water into the gravel bed and got the PH of 8.0 yesterday (Tap water is about 7.. Do I need to bring the PH down before cycling? I plan to put in a few tilapias to start the cycling.

Cty, I would personally go with gravel beds then later add on the DWC tank if you want. DWC will have less surface area for the bacteria so will only be able to support a fraction of the number of fish a gravel grow bed can.

You dont need to do anything to the water to start cycling (PH wise). You might want to find out what is in the water and act accordingly. Best to use rain water if possible.

Thanks. Will add some rain water and see. Here the PH of rain water tends to be less than 7.

Trial and error eventually works. Remember that you will probably start out with a lot of small fish and as these grow they dirty the water more and more. A few fish will usually get eaten by other fish as some fish grow bigger than others. Some fish will die and that is important to know. It is usually good to get some water from someone elses health fish pond to add to your water so you get a good balance of bacteria in your tanks. Just a bucket full is enough. Let your fish pond run for two or three weeks before you put good fish in there. You can always put some gold fish in for the beginning to develope the bacteria level. Gold fish can live in almost anything and will give you something to look at while you decide on what species you really want to grow.