Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hello everyone,

the fish tank I have is a 5500L poly tank 2.4D x 1.2H. Looks awsome but finding sufficient grow bed volume is proving difficult.

The 1:2 formula is a bit daunting.

Have any of you guys ever intergrated a reed bed to reduce the grow bed ratio?

This will still leave ample vegetable grow bed space for my garden

Hi waterboy,

You can have any sized grow bed you like, it just means you won't be able to stock it at rediculously high levels.. My 5000L tank has one small growbed 1.2m dia x 0.3m deep and it's probably got close to 20kg of fish in it at the moment.. Though there's a few too many it it at the moment, it would take 10-15kg of fish without too many troubles..

I'm not to sure if anyone here has added reed beds into their system..

that sounds more like it, currently ive got 2 poly 1.5D x 0.5H ponds that could be used for grow beds quite happily although only providing 1.5m3 total volume, which I thought was way too small.

I had planned to use these for red claw and duckweed, but again was concerned the total volume ratio was going to get out of hand.

thats a lot of blue drums...



cheers

Just stock according to the ratios you end up at. I have about 3500 litres with nearly 3000 litres of gravel...

yep, as monya said, take the growbed volume, work it backwards to see what size "virtual" tank that equates to with a 1:2 rario and stock according to that tank size

yeah I got it you, thats a far better way to look at it.

thanks

from joels calculations, I have calculated maximum stocking to be 3kg of fish to 100 litres of grow bed.

Thus allowing you to have 45 kg of fish in your tank. I always assume I will let all of my fish grow to 1kg thus you should get 45 fingerlings plus some for death/jumping out/murray comes over

The other alternate is that you buy 100 fingerlings and be prepared to add more growbeds at a later date. Any way Wish I had a tank that big and good luck

A reed bed would make a huge difference in the water quality, it would suck up all the harmful chemical buildups. Problem is, if you plan on having veges growing in your gavel grobed, the reed bed will suck up alot of the essential nutrients, which may reduce the growth of the plants.

What if you were to add in some Bio filiters to help convert your Amonia. And then stock heavy nitrate feeding plants. You might be able to up your volume a bit wiht this or at least add a saftey factor.

Now who was it that built that fillter out of a garbage bin? That or a blue barrel would work well.

JT

A reed bed after the grow beds might work. Reeds are very good at cleaning out phosphorus.

I have perlite and clayballs in a blue barrel with cont flow as added biofiltration. Too scared to drop it out of the system LOL

The 5500L fishtank is now full of water and I have been test cycling it over the long weekend. The is 9 growbeds around 500L volume each containing 20mm river gravel. I'm using standpipes with a single 6mm hole in the base of each. The system takes approx. 20 minutes to fill all beds and 80-90 mins to completely drain. Is this drain time excessive? I couldn't see if flood and drain times have been covered elsewhere on the forum. My next step is to connect the fish tank pump to a timer, with these perameters if they are suitable. Drop in the 12V backup pump system and go from there...

Hi, I have started adding reads to my system just because they can be left alone and can use up what nutes are avalable to them while the veggies come and go through the seasons, i figure it may help to stabilise the system a little.
I have 2 types of reads, one i dont know the name of but the one I am using the most is Blue Rush I think.

From memory, reeds are heavy nitrate feeders... could possibly starve your other plants...

Having "unused" nitrates during crop rotations won't affect your fish... so, no real need...

One of the most common varieties of reed (phragmites australis) releases gallic acid and mesoxalic acid which can effect susceptable less vigorous plants. I wonder if this would be cause for concern in an AP closed system, especially when runners can travel around 5m and seed profusely. Could be a bit wild for your average AP system...