Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello,

I'm new to all of this stuff and this is my first post. I have a question.
I just read a great article in the latest Grass Roots magazine about Aquaponics and Joel Malcolm (who wrote it) states that he produces "well over 100 kilos of vegetables and 50 kilos of fish in six months." Can you tell me which type of fish to use that grows that quickly.

JM

Hi Jan,

welcome to backyard aquaponics. Joel is the person who originally set up this site. We all learn from each other here, you will find some amazing information.

Best place to start is perhaps the Members systems, a lot of people are using silver perch because they are very hardy, others use barramundi and yet the American members of our forum seem to prefer the Tilpara (hope i spelt that right guys).

Hope you dont end up with information overload like we did.

Welcome to the forum Jan. Great to see to become part of our growing family. I believe Joel had Barra, but I believe he has trialed a number of different species.

If you view the forums, you will see many different types of systems and ideas.

People are trying Barra, Jade perch, silver perch, trout, redclaw, aquarium fish.. Tilapia - Illegal in most states but not in other parts of the world.

Basically if it breaths and deficates in water( Ok, lem me rephrase. If it is a water creature like fish or redclaw and it breaths and deficates in water, it can be used for aquaponics). It just depends what you want to eat. Some people do guppies or goldfish. Have a look at various DPI websites for information about each species type.

But the numbers are correct. Joel even had a single tomato plant that had a crop of 31Kg of Tomatos off of it...

Take your time to view the site. Theres a wealth of information!

McPhro

Can you rephrase that please McP, its a little bit too open for my likeing. (most people I know can do that, I know we have talked about topping up with liquid gold but I think that is taking things a bit far)

it's all poo and water dude. Thats why I wash my hands after working with fish, or wear gloves if I have a cut.

Hi Jan, welcome to the forum...see you a Qlder also.

Just to answer your question, 50kg of fish could be:
50 fish putting on 1kg of weight in 6 months
100 adding 500 grams etc

On fish growth:
barra can be grown to 500-800g in 6-8 months
jade perch take around 10-12 months
silver perch 12-15 months

There are a few on the forum who are from the Brisbane area and will happily advise on the best fish species in the area and are also willing to allow tours of their setups. (I am from the Caboolture area)

Any further questions, throw them up and we will attempt to help

Trout will also do it easy in 6 months but you'd be too warm up there for them

just on the trout thing steve, my silvers basically shut down over winter and so everything shut down. to prevent this this season i've been considering trout. do you think this is a viable option? will still have 100perch in there too.

on those figures of ap harvest, do many of you experience the same sort of production as joel?

I have noticed that as my system matures, the harvest increases on each successive crop. I am also trying to get worms established in the beds - so far have seeded 3 and have noticed capsules on roots of vegies as I was pulling them out (so cut the roots off and left them in the beds )

Short answer - I have not attained Joel's figures but believe it is attainable and I am getting more vegies than I can use (makes for a great supply to my BSF farm )

i found this site about 3 weeks ago, and a couple of days ago i noticed something at the newsagent, it was grassroots with eb on the front. anyways jan, you will find everything you need to get going in this forum, great ppl great community


springa

ps AP gets you, youll be hooked.

Welcome Jan. I first became hooked on AP when Joel quoted these figures on a permaculture forum that we were/are both members of a couple of years back.

At first I thought the whole thing to be a pretty doubtful proposition - but was hooked all the same.

I am no longer a doubter. My fish have grown very quickly considering the fact that at because I was still experimenting and building early on, I fed the fish far from optimum amounts for a long time. All the same - UI harvested my first Jade Perch in a little over 9 months (with the biggest at that time being over 600 grams.

we picked more than 35kg of tomatoes since June, just started eating the fish semi-regularly.

Welcome Jan

We did 30 odd kilo's of barra in 7 months battling weather and new system etc..., and ate salad and vegies galore. Easily achievable with a decent sized system.

worms, i think trout would be a great winter crop for you. just put them in a seperate fishtank if u can (i used a spa with water supply split from the main tank into the spa and then back out to the main tank)

Welcome, Jan!
My first batch of tilapia have grown out from 2 grams to 300 grams in about 10 months. The system had too many fish, so I was not able to feed optimally. Now that I have things figured out better, I think the next (smaller) batch will grow out faster. My growbeds are now planted mostly in ornamental low-light tropical plants, so I'm not eating much veggie at this point. I consider this system to be a prototype for something bigger and in better light.