Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

After moving from Melbourne to WA, i have had a chance to start again.
I have had a lot of time to research and think about my new system.
I have decided to go completely saltwater and completely solar.

My goal is to successfully raise a range of fish and crustations and molluscs in a large system powered by the sun.
I am however, starting small.

3 blue barrels, one for a fishtank, 1 for growbed stands and 1 for growbeds.

I have a small 4.5w 400lph brushless dc pump powered by a 18ah SLA battery which is charged by a 20W monocrystaline solar panel via a powertech 20a charge controller.

I will be using an arduino microcontroller to monitor and control the system remotely as well.

I am not very patient, so a larger system will follow shortly.

Let the fun begin!

Solar panel is mounted on my roof above the system.
Beer can for scale only.

Samphire has been chosen as the salt tolerant vegetable for use in the system.
I will also be trialing a few types of edible seaweed as well.
The system is constant flood and sits at around 300L all up.

Added 3 Fish today, 2 butter fish and a Herring.
Water temp is quite high, may be a problem as the weather warms up.
I dony know if there is any commercial feed available for saltwater species, i will head up tp BYAP and grab some of their pellets and we will see if they work.

Is your system under cover? What happens if you get lots of rain?

I have a feeling that that little panel won;t be enough to keep the fish alive for very long, might need to look at an upgrade..

The panel does struggle a bit. The ideal size would be around 40wattt. This would allow around 1000lph.
The FT is undercover but the GBs get a bit of rain, i will keep an eye on the salinity levels and add salt if necessary.
The fish havent started to take much food uf any. i will try to get my hands on some brine shrimp soon. Any ideas where to get some?

I think you can order eggs from eBay.

Edit: try here: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Brine-Shrimp ... 0576101884

I'm looking forward to watching your progress with this.

You will have to monitor salinity anyway as salt will be constantly removed by the samphire. The rate at which this occurs is something you'll have to find out.

So, weekend has been and i lost the herring on Saturday, it didn't seem to recover well from being caught by hook.

Samphire is all looking very deadish, i will pretend it is transport shock for now but i need more ideas in the meantime. System is showing signs of algae growth which at least means to me that the filtration is working.

The 2 butter fish are doing fine.
None of the fish seem to be taking the pellets yet.
But... i put in some seaweed about a week ago and it is all gone now. Butterfish must be herbivores!
More research to do.
I upgraded to 40w of solar to supplement my battery. I believe the 20w would be fine if it was angled at 32 degrees and wasn't being shaded by a huge gumtree in my backyard.

A new addition: Billy The Blowfish. I have given him/her a name because i am not going to eat it.

Now researching:

MPPT charge controller to increase the charge efficiency.
Samphire seeds from somewhere.
Other salt tolerant plants to try.
Abalone
Blue Manna Crabs
System Expansion to IBC

krozbolt let me know how you go. Would love to be able to raise lobsters in a AP system

Krozbolt, you'll have an almost impossible time trying to get wild caught fish to take pellets.

You may be better off contacting Challenger TAFE and getting some black bream and try raising them. They also usually have yellowtail kingfish available but your system ain't big enough to try them.

Success! The fish are eating!
I wasn't sure but i put in a block of frozen brine shrimp and turned my back to fiddle with the growbeds, looked again and gone. Threw in another block, watched and they were eating and even fighting over it.
Threw in a few pellets and they are all taking them as well.
I guess 2 weeks is long enough for them to get over the shock and get hungry enough to feed.

1 Month has passed, plants are dead. I have started growing some Samphire from seed.
Fish are eating pellets only now.
I am growing algae in one of the growbeds until i get more plants. Is this a good idea?

The alge will help keep your nitrates down just watch your oxygen levels at night - on a side note you may try catching wild fish with a cast net to have less shock / damage from a hook I started off my system with a number of species that way which all seemed better off in the long run than the ones we caught on a hook