Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone,

Been lurking for a couple of weeks on the forums, mainly looking at members systems and then on to veges and fish feed. Am currently in the process of buying parts for my first ever system. The plan is to get 2 food grade IBC's and go from there basically. Am leaning towards CHIFT PIST style system but that would probably require a third IBC and at $150 a pop for food grade, cleaned IBC's here thats quite a lot of veges worth of moolah!

Im open to using bath tubs in the system (already have one I scored for $30) so once I get the IBC's I'll just see where it takes me. Unfortunately aquaponics does not seem to be well known in NZ so sourcing parts and friends is difficult. We also do not have very many fish farms or even fish in general with which to stock the system so I will be starting with gold fish and then looking into later stocking it with grass carp (only one legally authorized place farms those, only releases triploids and even then they only do so for the governments river/lake restorations projects and some farmers). The other option would be rainbow salmon as trout farming is illegal in NZ (sigh...).

I have read a lot about aquaponics and probably gotten very far ahead of myself so hoping to start something concrete and then get a working knowledge of everything from there on out.

Also, my name is Dean, 27 years old, married to a canadian, 17 week old son and I work as a psychiatric/mental health nurse. That should suffice for now

Welcome Dean, where in New Zealand are you from? I was in Auckland earlier this year, would love to go back again. I am jealous of your fertile soil and water.

From Hamilton Faye

Trying to track down any other NZ aquaponics folk. Know of any on this forum that are active off the top of your head? Just been searching the forums and about to read what I think is another NZ posters thread. Interestingly enough the snippet I saw mentioned the lack of fish available for AP in NZ lol.

Hi Dean, I'm an ex-Taranaki man... ( along time ago).... welcome...

There's been one or two Kiwis join the forum... but as you've discovered... the lack of acceptable fish stocks are your biggest problem....

And sadly NZ just doesn't have any native freshwater fish that grow to any real size...

hi Dean hope you go well with your system there, couldn't have half guessed that you may have come from the other side of the ditch rupert!

Welcome and enjoy champ!

Hey Rupert

Funnily enough by pure chance your epic mega hybrid-system thread was the first I read on this forum. Quite the process! I am saddened by the lack of fish we can stock here in NZ AP systems and for this reason i'm considering either stocking with goldfish OR considering what other pet market fish I might be able to grow and on-sell on a rotation basis. For example I was considering Oxolotyls (mexican walking fish) but would need to research a bit more about them to see if they are viable and what market there is for them. Another I came upon is Oranda goldfish, something of an ornamental big head goldfish. As you can tell I havent really looked into the ornamental fish side of things.

I might see if I can email Wilson Lennard and enquire as to how they got the grass carp for their test system and at what cost because I know you can only get triploids and I dont know when fingerlings are available during the year...

Silly old new zealand aye. As a 'clean green' country we should be at the forefront of aquaponics, not the tail end...

Ok so I have purchased the components for my system. I will post pictures once everything is here. Currently I have one food grade (aluminium?) plated 1000 litre IBC and have purchased another as a sump tank. I have purchased 3x 300 L bathtubs giving me approx 900L of growbed.

I had a rough idea in mind that I wanted to do for the set up, but co-incidentally the very image I had in mind I found someone had already done:

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ... revstart=0

So this is essentially what my first aquaponics system is going to be. I am going to stock it with gold fish and perhaps Koura which are a fresh water shellfish. I think they are a protected species but you are allowed a catchment of 50 per day for your own consumption as far as i've read and people keep them in aquariums so as long as I dont sell them or give them to others I think I can take a few and breed them for my own consumption.

It's slowly coming together...

Cool, Hillsy's system...

Did you download the free manual? There are more pictures and a brief description of that system along with many more systems..

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10126

Yeah that's where I found the link to the google sketch I have to say the IBC of aquaponics manual was one of the first collection of systems I ever saw and boy did it inspire me to have one of my own Many thanks to all who contributed!