Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am in the begining stages of setting up a small aquaculture farm roughly 11,200 gallons in a 12 tank setup. Each of the tanks will have a 100gal bio filter. My core is going to be the fish anything else will be added bonus. So i have a few Q's about aquaponics should I run the water through the bio filter first or through the beds first? planning on using expanded clay as a medium. Should i catch the solids or let them go to the beds? I am going to be stocking the "indoor ponds" with tilapia minimum 5lbs per cubic foot. what plants are good to grow with low light I will be using suplmental lighting since its indoors...if this works i may attach a greenhouse to the building and use the sun.

Mate, I'm seriously not intending to be offensive here but, if your post represents your level of knowledge you need to go and read some aquaculture books or, even better, do a course at a local college. At this point, it looks to me that you're committing to a serious undertaking that you know little or nothing about.

Been operating ponds out doors for year pretty much self sutaining only adding water and food ...Mind pointing me to where i am lacking?

well;

- the growbeds are the biofilter in aquaponics

- if you're using separate biofilters, then you are simply using the plants for nutrient stripping

- 5lb/cubic foot is a very high stocking rate and with the volumes you are talking, would generate a vast amount of nutrients that would require enormous growbeds to facilitate enough plants to strip them out. In reality I don't think you could; you'd still need water changes and you would therefore need to question whether the plants are worth the hassle.

- the density of stocking that you are talking is also an extremely intensive monoculture system with significantly more complex requirements than throwing some fish food into a pond. Water management, disease prevention & management, feed management, stock management ......

If my maths and conversions is any good you are looking to stock approx 750 tilapia per 3500L tank x 12 tanks. Using recomended safe stocking capacity you would need 15,000L of GB per fish tank, assuming you wanted to use grow beds alone for bio-filtration. Thats 1,680,000L of media in total, or 3360 x 500L grow beds.

5lbs per cubic foot is going to require lots of filtration....this is taken car of already and with oxygen fertigation should be no problem we are going to shoot for 9lbs per cubic foot thats the goal anyway.Is it going to be easy or cheap?...probably not...will it be profitable...well...my consultant tells me it will..lol.

So lets start over....The fish end I have covered. Just wondering about incorporating Aquaponics to maybe one or to tanks and weather or not to have them flooded with water pre or post filtration

Gb's will not be main source of filtration Charlie

I would change consultants.

Please Tell me why

Is 5lb/cubic foot approx 200kg/1000L?

Closer to 60/70kg probably maybe? My maths is obviously terrible tonight.

Are you trying to say that 9lbs of biomass per cubic foot is unatainable MR Damage?

about 85 kg per 1000L

I can't speak for Mr D, but;

- unattainable, no, you could probably achieve it with tilapia (probably only species you could)

- unsustainable, absolutely! Your system will be so overstocked that as soon as one little part of the system fails, you'll lose everything in the tank.

Have you seen other systems that your consultant has constructed and that have been working long term, with those sort of stocking densities ? Make sure you verify that he was the consultant involved in any projects that he points to.

Ok, so assuming you've figured the fish out (I couldn't find others running at this density but I'll give you the benefit of a doubt) - If you're planning on using expanded clay in the growbeds, with the stocking densities you're talking about, I would filter the water first. You can always add some digested solids back into the flow and if you don't remove the solids I believe you'll clog the grow beds very quickly.

Why not filter everything and run DWC as they do in the Virgin Islands? Unless you're just doing a small bed it's probably less work to setup DWC. Check out Ryan's system as well.