Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All,

We are currently in Australind but are moving up to perth (hocking) in a month, and are taking our aquaponics with us! I figured it is a fantastic way to keep your garden with you, and we have moved fish tanks before so I guess it couldnt be much different moving the fish, We will soon see.

My lovely husband gave me the Aquaponics kit for my birthday in november 2011 and its been the BEST gift ever, since we were renting and I didnt want to establish too much of a garden because we are moving. Its the gift that keeps on giving! In our next location Im itching to experiment with vertical gardens and expanding the 1000L tank and grow bed.

We have already accounted some issues with the summer heat on our new seedlings and water temp on the new plants. In hydraponics the plants do the best in 23-24C? or so we have been told. And as our first fish we are risking the barramundi. We got very small fingerlings in december so we will have to keep them over winter with some sort of heating system, so we are keeping the temp around the high 20's low 30's to get our fishies growing as big as possible before winter! They've tripled in size already yay!
I cant wait to go fishing
But I love a challenge, Its the best way to learn

Any hints on heating?
Ive been searching many forums and my conclusion so far is that night time is the worst drop in temp, so a solar heating system is almost useless, but the compost heap seems like a better, more constant temp throughout? Still need convincing before I start constructing something.

Im really loving aquaponics! Ive read so much about it and at last putting it into practice.

Hi Poo. Haven't heard of anyone using compost before. I think that's a great idea. I guess you will have to experiment a bit.
I have a barramundi farm near me. The guy who runs it tells me 25 degrees is the min. for barra. If cooler, they start getting problems.

Let us know how you go with the compost idea. I think it will work, but would need quite a bit of maintenance or, you could hire a cassowary.

Hi and welcome,

Cant find the thread at the moment, but one of the forum members from South Africa trialled heating water via a compost heap.

Perhaps one of the other forum members will be able to find it and point you in the right direction.

Other than that there is plenty of info on the interwebz about it.

I am thinking that running a temperature exchange system, through a worm farm, could work well too. Worms generate a lot of heat. I am always amazed at the difference between the air temperature inside the worm farm and the ambient temp.

Veggieboy tried the compost thing as well, I seem to remember it being only slightly successful. You can do it with electrical heater but it will cost you a bit..