Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all . Am considering setting up an aquaponics operation hopefully on a commercial scale for when I tell my current employer that he's no longer needed. I live in the tropics where both land and labour are relatively cheap . There are also abundant supplies of Tilapia which appears to be the most suitable fish to grow . The system would be more angled towards vegetable or microgreen production as this is what is currently lacking in the market .With that said though Tilapia is a commodity type product in the local wet market.

Excuse my ignorance with a few of these questions but the bottom line is I am an extremely NON practical person . Here goes anyway ;

1) Are there any courses available (preferably in Western Australia) ?
2) Would you use kgs of produce per kgs of fish as the formula to determine the suitability of one system over another (the goal is to produce more veges than fish).
3) Are there two basic systems? The NFT and aggregate .The floating raft system appears to require a larger capex and looks harder to manage.
4) Would using chicken or duck manure as fish food be effective ? ie. poultry as an element in the system . By effective I suppose I mean would you need supplementary food.

That'll probably do me for now . I was shocked at the sheer range of systems on this website and even more by the simplicity. My ideas on start-up were to try something in the backyard (initially to see if the fish go on the manure) before renting some land (hopefully with a greenhouse superstructure on it) and eventually purchasing land . I've got a few bob stashed but really want to minimise capital expenditure until I'm sure it will work.

Thanks in advance.

Have a look at CRTreeDude's system - he is doing it in the tropics.

I believe chicken/duck manure is not usually used due to disease risk problems? Some people use eggs as part of the fish food mix.

As for the input to vegies side, probably go by kg's of Fish food in : kg's of greens out.

I would say that 20kg of fish food = a sheet load of vegies, someone else may have calculated it.

If I had the land and the money i would try something large scale too

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My New Commercial System - viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6616
My Work - http://www.goldfieldsmc.com.au

masbeast,,I grow Tilapia on my land in Tropical Thailand. Chicken poop is good to assist the "algal bloom" that Tilapia use for food.Whetherthissuits a recycling AP system is debatable.
Ask me again in November,,,I'm contructing my first 400 square metre gravel bed and testing it then.

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I call a Spade a Spade,,,you can turn it upside down and paint itred but it's still a Spade.

OBO,,I've got spare land ,, ponds already made,,,now you just need money:)

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I call a Spade a Spade,,,you can turn it upside down and paint itred but it's still a Spade.

Hi there Outback, How are eggs given? Wouldn't they really foul the water? Is cow manure also risky? Thx.

_________________
Chelle.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Ellen Parr

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer.

Eggs are usually cooked into the food mix Cyara - just adds protein + binding.

_________________
My New Commercial System - viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6616
My Work - http://www.goldfieldsmc.com.au

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Give me trout any day
http://s670.photobucket.com/albums/vv70 ... ?start=all
http://forum.homeone.com.au/

Interesting. Worth a try. Thanks Outbackozzie.

_________________
Chelle.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Ellen Parr

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer.

All warm blooded animal manure may pose some disease risk from stuff like salmonella or e. coli. That said, millions of tilapia are grown in Asia using manure to help with the algae blooms.

The challenges with inducing algae blooms in the recirculating environment of the Aquaponics system have to do with keeping pH stable and O2 available in the water. Algae can cause extreme pH swings through the day as they use up O2 at night and give off CO2 the pH will drop and during the day they will use up CO2 and give off O2 and the pH will rise. This can not only stress fish and bacteria from the pH bouncing but it can also leave your fish gasping for O2 early in the morning.

The next issue is to do with any negative substances that might be in the manure, in recirculating systems negative stuff can build up so one should look into this carefully. Especially if the manure is coming from animals being treated with any sort of medications.

As to starting out to test your ideas, that is easy but I warn you there seems to be no cure for the addiction. I think the barrel ponics system is a good run of the mill starter system for anyone who needs to get the feel for some plumbing, gravel washing, and cycling. The barrel ponics manual is easy to follow and free. Here in the US, some one buying everything new to build the system could probably still do it for well under $300 for all the parts excluding fish and gravel.

If you wish to be more frugal on your first system, do lots of reading here. Check out many systems and follow several system threads through (if you can find some with similarities to what you think you might want to build.) Don't scrimp too much on the pump purchase if you are doing a medium to large backyard system since an energy efficient pump may cost more to buy but will make up the difference several times over on the electricity savings. (It is very possible that one pump might use 1000 W to do the same job that another pump only needs 200 W for and the price difference between the pumps might have been $300 or so.) I have found that blue barrels require more support and plumbing parts to get the same growbed volume than a larger bed framed in wood using pond liner. Therefore, if you are having to pay anything for the barrels and supports, the liner beds suddenly become cheaper if you are doing much more than a few barrels worth of system. Pond liner and wood may not be appropriate in many situations though. There are great turnkey systems that can be purchased but they will cost you the extra money up front while a home design DIY system will cost you time effort, tinkering, learning curve, etc. Which you decide will be up to you and your budget.
Your site can play a big role in how you design a system. Sun and shade. Slope. How hard is the ground to dig. Are termites a big problem. What will the neighbors think (and do you care)? Most people who build one system are already designing another with improvements. Having a "quarantine or isolation system" on hand is often a good idea so when you get new fish you can quarantine them for a while before putting them in with the others or if you get sick fish you need to isolate. Or even for purging fish before eating them.

Good luck and welcome to the madness

Oh, you mentioned media based or NFT systems as being your choices over DWC. I will say (granted this is my opnion but based on extensive reading) That media (aggregate) flood and drain beds provide you all the filtration (both solids and biological) you need along with providing both air and water to the plant roots and a place with support to grow the plants. Constantly flooded or continuous trickle through aggregate do work but both have some added challenges. NFT and DWC may work but will both require added aeration as well as separate solids filtration and bio-filtration aside from the plant growing space. If you want to add extra plant growing space after some gravel grow beds, that works fine but a system does not work that well on fish tank and NFT trough alone.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

Thanks all for the time you have taken to reply . Unfortunately I haven't started yet as my employer has me spending no more than 2 weeks at home .

What would be the most effective system (NFT or aggregate) for growing microgreens ? Has anyone done this ?

Thanks ,

Troy

as TClynx wrote, pig and chicken manure is commonly used in aquaculture in Asia

but to us "westerners" the idea of eating fish that has been fed manure is commercial suicide

better transform the manure into worms or duckweed

that can be commercial assets. Very interesting to attract visitors and buyers

frank

I'm not sure what microgreens are but there are four important things that aggregate flood and drain grow beds do that are all necessary to an AP system.
1-provide solids filtration
2-provide bio-filtration
3-provide space/support for plants
4-the flood n drain aggregate beds provide plenty of aeration to plant roots and bacteria colonies as well as providing added aeration to the water for the fish.

If you do an NFT system, you still need to provide these things some other way and there are sometimes other challenges that you need to deal with in NFT or DWC systems.

Many people will do a combination where water goes from fish tank through a gravel plant bed before going to a sump where a pump can feed the NFT troughs from the relatively clean water after the grow beds.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

I found something very interesting concerning this.... It is from an excellent magazine programme we have here Sunday nights. This is from the transcript:



This is the site URL: http://www.mnet.co.za/Mnet/Shows/carteb ... sp?Id=3534

Certainly a different point of view! I think earthworms are more amazing than we know....

_________________
Chelle.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Ellen Parr

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer.

Well, composting worms were my first livestock here. Had thousands of them in a bin and yet they make no noise and generally clean up the stink of otherwise rotting scraps.

As to them cleaning up any pathogens. Perhaps anything a worm actually manages to eat and cast out the other end is "cleaned" but since I don't know of any perfect way to make sure that the finished castings don't come back in contact with things that are still contaminated, I'll stick with hot composting for turning possible pathogen containing manure into useful garden amendment. FYI, compost is also a great material for cleaning up or filtering out nasty pollution.

One member in South Africa has set up some commercial systems and in one of them they have put some cages of chickens over the fish tanks. I don't know how much food value the fish are getting from the chicken poo, but apparently the plants in that system have really tanken off since the addition of the chickens. Chicken manure is really high in nitrogen.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

Interesting. I have added a henhouse to the side of my design to be able to swill down directly off the sloping henhouse floor into the pond. I don't want the hens actually in the greenhouse and over the pond. Think it is healthier for them with more ventilation. Without a greenhouse I think it would be superb! Must not have a monkey problem where they are building the system.

_________________
Chelle.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Ellen Parr

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer.