Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Greetings to all the tomato-fish farmers out there.

I am an American living in Honduras where our family runs a small orphanage. The orphanage is set on a small farm with a fish pond. I first heard of aquaponics this year by another farmer in the area. Our fish pond does not work real well because I think the water quality declines as quickly as Tilapia reproduce.

The hope is that, with enough plant beds, we can help the fish grow much better and have some salad to go with.

Has anyone out there worked with a pond rather than the more pristine barrel type systems I'm seeing on the front? I guess my concern is for clogging up drain pipes and beds with silt/dirt. My first thought was to build a water container at the top of the hill, pump water into it and let the silt settle to the bottom. After that, let the top half of the water drain into the plant systems.

I'm open to pointers here. I have a friend coming down to help with this in a couple months and want to get it all planned/designed before he gets here.

Kind regards,
Mark in Honduras

Hey there Mark..

There are a few people who have built pond based systems and there's no reason why they shouldn't work reasonably well.. Every new system has it's own set of potential issues.

the only potential issue I see with having a settling tank like that, is that dissolved oxygen levels will drop right down.. You might be able to aerate the settling tank a bit, but you would have to be careful because aeration can tend to stir up the settling action..

Thanks for your reply

Any idea of pond water might eventually clog up a gravel bed? We would probably try to take water from the top of the pond.

Thanks

just how much silt/mud is there in the pond ? generaly i wouldnt have thought it to be a problem

Cheers
pete

Hard to quantify how dirty water is. It's a natural pond. Except for rain, the water is pretty well immobile, so not a lot of stirring up. Still, I doubt there's more than a foot of visibility.

Mark,
Did you solve the problem? I am also in Honduras...in La Ceiba. Where are you?

I was giving the situation some thought and I was wondering if a thick 6mil plastic liner could be added to cover the dirt issues?

Thanks Billy.