Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,

I am Daniel and i'm from Adelaide, Australia.

Just getting to Aquaponics....cant believe for the life of me how more people are not into this

I think i have attached a couple of pic's of my set up at home and though i would ask a couple of questions...(and just in case people ask, i have used scoria stone fresh out of the eighty's gardens as my media)

1-i have 15 trout fingerlings (roughly 10cm long) is this to much?

2-after 4 weeks running 24/7 i have a very small green algie build up on the very top of the tank...should i be concerned?

any advice is highly welcomed

thanks for reading

Welcome Danial, looks like youve got it all under control there.

15 trout is good.

'Pea soup' stage is very normal. Its a result from sunlight and nutrient rich water. Cover your FT if you can and it will dissapate in time. Do you have an aerator in the FT?

I think we're going to out number all the other states on here soon!

Welcome to the forum!

Looking pretty good.

Hi dangas888,

Looks good.

Yeah scoria rocks!

I agree with you about AP, it's great.

I've never had an interest in gardening until I found a video about AP on youtube.
Now I'm hooked.....bad. I even dream about it, it's a true mania.

The learning curve has been quite steep but I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

LOL....i dream about it to!!

Ahhhh...thanks for the response, just awesome

i have been looking into buying a new house in the next 6-8months and my aquaponics enthusiasm i want to purchase a large enough piece of land to put as couple of greenhouses on and hopefully grow enough food and fish to be self supporting and may be make a little extra selling at farmers markets....im very motivated

so would there be an expert or experts on this forum who would like to help me design a system so i know how much land to buy?

i genuinely feel that aquaponics will solve so many food problems and i am all for spreading the word

thanks again for your help and support

P.S any one in Adelaide who would want to catch up and chat aquaponics sing out. love a good conversation

I'd recommend buying the land you can afford. But I'll happily watch to see how it goes!

I do think we should organise an Aquaponics pub night in Adelaide. There is at least 20 regular people on here from Adelaide i can think of.

Where in Adelaide are you?

i am western sub boy, woodville way,

would be interesting to meet and greet

You could go from the City of Churches to the City of Perchs'

Sometimes I can't resist.

When it comes to system design your ideas will evolve over time.

As you already have a small system you can take your time designing the next.

All the while you will be getting a feel for AP through your present system and soaking yourself in ideas about how you will do your next one. This is a good combination.

So much of good design depends on identifying precisely what you are trying to achieve and as its early days for you that will be a moving target.

Let your mind settle naturally as there are a lot of "what if" "maybe" "Perhaps" "This with that" as the mind sorts all the variables. This is an organic process. Have you noticed that anything that could even possibly hold water now get assessed for aquaponic use?

I found over time my ideas progressed from high fish to plant ratios to exactly the opposite, I went from mechanical complexity to Zen like simplicity, but it took time to do that mental 180. My first system turned into a plumbing nightmare due to it needing to fit in a complex location and the requirement for reasonable aesthetics. This has driven my love of simplicity.

I guess I'm saying it is easy for the mind to design and difficult for the hand to build.
Let desire and ability come together holistically then you'll get better, more pleasing and impressive results.

love a good dad joke lol!!

based on what i am hearing, i think i will take my time, design and plan a system then put it up on here for "constructive criticism"

i have been brainstorming for a month or so, but nothing on paper..

i was looking at buying a "x" market garden with established greenhouses and dams....then "simply" installing some grow beds and a pumps here and there...

to be honest i cant see it not working....but i need a lot of planning before i do this. i was looking into buying acreage for some time, i want a self sufficient lifestyle, so i figured i could mix aquaponics into it

dangas888,

Have a look at this thread a few of us have been throwing around and kicking about some ideas that may be interesting to you.

If you've got a sense of humor and skin thick enough to keep it... jump in.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=22098

Thanks champ