Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Greetings folks,
newbie here. I have a 5 acre farm of sorts and a 1/2 acre pond. Its currently stocked but the drought this season wiped out everything but fingerlings. I have a barn about 20ft from the water's edge (now the pond is full up with all the rain we've had lately) and the barn stalls I was planning on converting to raised beds.
What I would really like to know is if I could use the pond itself as my medium as well as water supply and fish tank by floating my crops out on it and stocking the pond with tilapia and duck weed.
Would there be any downsides to this or caveats like disease or bacteria that would be harmful? Is there anything I'm missing in cutting out the need for a green house? The floating baskets would be netted against predators and tied off with rope.

you might have oxygen problems if stocked with lots of fish...

Also your tilapia may well eat the roots of the plants you are trying to grow.

The Aztecs did something like this and it worked great for them - it's called a Chinampa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinampa

Their version is really more like a wicking garden if I understand it. One are is called the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco, I not sure though, if they really float.

My guess is for your version you really couldn't change the stocking density in the lake much but I don't see why you couldn't grow some plants on it. I agree the Oxygen might be a problem. Solids clinging to the roots might be a problem also.