Aquaponics

[ROB83R]

I'm going to dedicate this thread to all things related to aquaponics. 

Here's a quick intro

 

@skidxr6t johnno post up what ya know. 

I plan on sustaining my family with a bit extra for the local market on a Saturday. 

Hopefully I'll have it all off the grid also. Shouldn't need a great deal of sun to run some pumps. 

 

Anyone done it? 

Got tips for what fish to use, what veggies go best etc get in here and tell us.

[skidxr6t]

I used gold fish, but you can use many other types. basically they need to put up with the water being a little bit bad for them in a sense but not like toxic where you kill them. we have a balance between max plant growth and fish life.

 

bacteria. it is so cool, the fish poo and then the bacteria converts the 'nutrients' into forms that the plants can use. the food you feed the fish is obviously an important consideration as you eventually eat the veg. I mention below that you want to ramp up the amount of fish, this is because you want plenty of fish but you need to let the bacteria that converts the poo into nutrients form before you go crazy.

 

also you kinda screwed for bug control, you can't use white oil or anything much really. you can kinda use some but you gotta make sure it doesn't get into the water which isn't too hard when the things are growing out of control.

 

1000 litre tank/250l growbed ROUGHLY. doesnt have to be always. 30cm deep is best. I used expanded clay. look up how to make a bell ciphon. fish, well because of the bacteria you kinda want to ramp it up over time or else they will die from toxicity (bacteria needs to grow). and some fish jump out of the tank....rainbow trout im looking right at you, you suicidal bastards.

 

I wanted to use an IBC container but im abit skeptical as I dont know what would have been in it before. ideally you want two tanks if you are serious about it. can grow like marron n stuff too just gotta make sure its clean for em.

 

forgot size pump but use one that has a big long pickup rod that a big biofilter slides onto.

Edited 24/01/17 01:20 PM by skidxr6t

[Puffwagon]

Well it seems like there is another huge learning curve coming up.

 

It's kind of funny that the wife was just talking about getting the garden going again today and now this pops up.

[skidxr6t]

im kinda inspiring myself to setup another system. find a clean IBC container and cut the top off and then make that the grow bed (after calculating the size of course) then bang a hole saw through to make bell ciphon (google it but basically two bits of pipe and some holes in one of them so when water level reaches certain height it starts ciphoning the water out. then attach a pump with a tap or something so I can regulate the flow into the growbed to make sure it doesn't flow too much because we need the roots to breathe. you will have issues if the roots are too wet.

 

I feel like a growing medium that is very fine and more like soil would be superior to expanded clay as I have suggested. I wanted to investigate if I could somehow make  cocoaquaponics but I dont think it would drain properly (better for a hydro system that is run to waste). this is like coconut coir or something.

Edited 24/01/17 01:45 PM by skidxr6t

[ROB83R]

Johnno with all the facts  I thought I had it sorted in my head. I'm off to do more reading. 

Cheers

[masda74]

Far out, does this bring back memories. I have never had a setup myself, but many and I mean many a moons ago(if not more than 8 years) I was into aquaponics.

I was sucking up all this information about it from a website(which was setup by some West Australian outback family).

I lost my bookmark that this guy had for his blog and never found it again.

 

The guys had 4 of the IBCs that he got from some trucking company that used the IBCs to store water on their semis, so he knew that they were clean. Cost him $200 for each one. small price to pay. He used those 4 IBC's next to each other, to join them together and make one big fish tank. 

He used the clay balls to grow the plants in. I wish I still had the bookmark as they guy had over 70 pages in his thread.

He even used the overflow water from his aircon to supply water to the fish tank.

I have been searching for this guys thread for ages and have never been able to find the damn thing.

 

This is an example of how cheap and IBC can be if you look in the right place.

http://aquaponics.net.au/forum/threads/looking-for-ibcs.6121/

 

Johnny, it seems like we might need to have a catch up to discuss.....

[Puffwagon]

I showed the missus the intro video this morning. She seemed interested but due to her having a 4 am start with the baby the conversation didn't go far.

[ROB83R]

Haha impressed was she. 

Here's a nice link with some info http://ibcofaquaponics.com/

[Puffwagon]

Heh ya gotta love waking up at 4am with a baby that thinks it's time to get up won't go back to sleep.

 

It is something different for us. I'm just about to fire up youtube on the tv so we can watch how various setups come together and operate.

[skidxr6t]

I just had a thought, to grow the harder to grow plants in aquaponics I would propose a pot full of coco (canna brand)that is setup to run to waste and have a pump with a timer to give it abit of water twice a day or so. then you could run that water through another res and treat it with things (seasol, but also the other nutrients that aquaponics doesnt make much of but are toxic to fish) and you would be able to control pests cause even the organic pest sprays etc can kill fish.

 

this would be entirely experimental as I haven't tried it but coco is superior to expanded clay because it allows the roots to grow the really fine hairs which is good.  you'd use a standard flood n drain growbed for the leafy greens and use this for say a tomato plant.