Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi to all, and thank for sharing your knowledge.

We live in Smythesdale just outside Ballarat, Vic and are on 13 acres, which we bought because my wife and 2 little ones like to horseride. We have too much land really and it's not being used as it should, we bought and dispatched some sheep and pigs, but TBH I'm not into it and don't want to do it again. We have a large muddy dam containing a good head of Yabbies of all sizes and a smaller dam containing clearer water, Yabbies again and those little Mosquito fish, which are a pest species but easy to catch and might provide some good feed for something bigger? I mean if I catch them and feed them dead to other fish to eat, not put them in alive, and there's a load of frogs in that pond too.

I have thought about getting into AP to feed the family as I love fish and fishing and would love to teach the kids about it too, they had their own little veggie patches which they enjoyed until the chooks got in and ruined them

At the moment all I would like to do is put some rubbish free food on the table, but am wondering if I could make it expand to be able to sell some veggies at our little town farmers market. Is that being too ambitious?

I thought about Yabbie farming and it appeals to me as I do enjoy them, but I would love to keep some fish too, there is a Trout farm in Ballarat that sells the Trout as fingerlings or as yearlings. I thought about putting them in the small pond, but I'm not sure.

I thought I would just put this out there because I would probably just make a million costly errors if I try it on my own from the off.

Sorry for being such a green behind the ears city boy (Edinburgh Scotland) but it's all a bit new and a bit of a headcharge. I just want to make better use of what we have.

Thanks for any ideas, even if the are negative ones I appreciate your time.
Colin

Welcome to the Forum!

I wish I had your sort of land to play with, although I'd probably be very broke by now getting everything up!

My ideal if I had your sort of land would be to have 5 gravel beds 2.4m x 1.2m, which drain into long DWC beds, and all return back to the FT.

I've heard, but not found out for myself that you can't use dirt or clay lined ponds for AP, it messes with the bacteria process. However, I haven't tried it for myself, so I could be wrong.

Hi Colin,

So do you want to use the ponds as the fish tank for your AP system? It is possible but like Columnmn pointed out it could be tricky. It would also depend on the size of the pond compared to the size of the grow beds you intend to build.. if you have 80 000 litres in your pond then it could be very difficult to balance nutrient levels/pH etc especially if you only had a few small grow beds and then it would probably be better to make a smaller fish tank specifically for your AP venture.
Also I have heard that since ponds are often not shaded they can get algae blooms very easily with the high nutrient levels that AP often has. Although you may want to search a few of the threads for things like 'pool conversions to AP' as there are a few on this forum. best of luck

Hi Colin, welcome to the forum.

I'm an hour the other side of Ballarat but I'm often in town because my son goes to school there.

As to putting trout in your dam...a lot of those little dams are not deep enough for trout in the summer. Smythesdale can also be a bit warmer (I think) than this side of Ballarat so you may struggle to keep trout over summer.

Jim who is a member that hasn't been on the forum in a while is at Bunninyong and he would be a good person to ask. I cant remember if he was able to keep trout over summer or not.

Thanks for having a look and trying to help.

You know this might be a dumb question, but would the Yabbies in the big Dam supply enough nutrients to feed the veggies? The water from the big dam is pumped down to the house already and I would just need to send it back up. I could also put a cage up there with some Golden Perch in it, if recommended, one of my mates is a welder and we could make something up.

Colin