Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Our first “aquaculture” system wasn’t inspired by a desire to raise fish but rather as a need to conserve water about 20 years ago. We had a smallholding north of Pretoria and the ground was excellent for growing vegetables. In my humble city slicker mind the drainage was to good and we were using far to much scarce underground water.

So I dug out a hole 12m long by2m wide and 600mm deep. I sloped the bed and lined it with black PVC sheets that I just taped together. At the deepest side I fitted a pipe leading to a 1m by 1m x 1m sump. And then backfilled to hole.

I build a above ground tank of brick and mortar and placed a chicken coop on top of the one half.
The reason for including fish in the set up came about because we had a fish pond and 2m high waterfall next to the house in our braai (BBQ) area. Now the water for this came from the overflow from the main storage tank. From the tank to the waterfall to the pond and then circulated back to the waterfall. The fishpond had no filter so everyday about half the water was pumped out to irrigate the garden. And did those plants really take off – granted some days the garden did smell a little fishy – not sure if that was our imagination or what.

If the fish water did this for the plants then surely it would do the same for the veggies. And that is why the fish were included. Then I heard that the Chinese were feeding their fish chicken droppings. And chickens joined the system.

Water consumption dropped by about 70% and there was some impact on electricity consumption to because the borehole pump did not have to run so long everyday.
We never got around to stocking the fish tank because we became involved rural development in sub-Saharan Africa and would be away from home for months on end.

We sold up in 2005 and are now on a small holding that was part of a very large orange far. There are around 1000 orange trees but besides all the drama that a small grower has to put up with the trees themselves are old and really juicing oranges – what do I know. But that is another movie.

And now we are planning a decent AP system to feed us and the family who live within 50km of us and to keep me busy and out of trouble. After 49 years of married life I still haven’t fathomed out why women don’t like the sight of a man sitting on his backside doing nothing – boggles the mind sometimes.

I will keep you posted on the new system. At this stage I keep changing the plan as I see new things and read about the systems on the forum. I think the only given at this stage is that I will construct a 10kl cement block fish tank next month. I have a blockmaking machine and made all the blocks for our new house.

And we lost the rugby match against you guys – pity really but watch out next time.

I think its a general belief here that using warm blooded animal droppings in an aquaponic system of cold blooded fish is not a good idea.
Salmonella rings a bell

yea and ecoli


p.s. welcome to the forum

Thanks guys. I know that a lot of people are turned off by the idea but it appears that the use of chicken, duck and pig droppings is not uncommon in fish farming in rural area in developing countries. I read somewhere that the fish are purged using maize meal for a few days before harvest. Maybe the fact that those are earthen ponds has something do with with it being okay for them - who knows. I will have to look into this in depth because I was intending to use chickens in a very low cost system for distribution in the remote rural areas in South Africa.

Looks like it was just as well that we never got around to stocking the tank with fish. Don't want to be just another statistic!