Is anyone into aquaponics? I've seen some set up's at the Perth Royal Show ect and it looks great. The veggies look sensational and imagine having fresh trout or marron / yabbies for tea from the backyard...

If anyone has a set up could you let me know what it cost to set up? The pre made ones seem to start at $1000 and go up from there. Is it hard to maintain?
Finding the big (fish) tank without paying a fortune for it seems to be the key, as a water pump is only $100 at most. Looking on the net the only 1500L water tanks I could find cost heaps!!

Any ideas wouldbe most appriciated, and the seabreeze crew, whilst most definately nutty, seem a rather helpful bunch.

I'm setting up a system this summer, which I will cycle and test with just a few silver perch to get ready for doing a big winter season with trout.

Backyard Aquaponics in Jandakot is the place to go it seams if you're buying any kit new. Otherwise look around on classifieds. Probably a good idea to browse the backyard aquaponics forum and look at other peoples setups. Guys use old wheelie bins and all sorts to grown their fish and freshwater crays in.

The growth rate on the plants is definitely incredible and with a high lipid and protein rich diet the fish grow to very decent sizes over the season. Trout in winter and perch/barra in summer seams to be the way to go.

As for maintainence it all depends really. Regular checks on water quality will determine how often you need to do partial water changes. Keep the flow rate of the pumps high enough and the plants should do most of the filtering. Keep the fish growth tanks out of sun or put a cover on it...otherwise you'll get some seriously rapid algal growth which you're fish wont enjoy and neither will your nutrient starved plants. Other than that, enjoy watching your plants grow rapidly and enjoy eating very fresh fish,

Have had my system up and running now for about 10 weeks. As subsurf said, BYAP in Jandakot are fantastic for the bits and pieces plus advice. Additionally the BYAP website is an excellent reference point as well. The forum there will give you a lot of advice.

As for what you spend, it all depends on your - budget; creative ability; and goals (though this tends to change with aquaponics as it becomes fairly addictive. Systems using IBC's can be made up for a lot less than $1000.

Maintenance is minimal - top up the water occasionally, feed the fish, plant veges, and harvest the veges and fish.

Have a symbiotic system makes sense in although my experience is fairly limited once my system is in full flight it will be great to get the full returns. This can take some time as your water needs to develop a ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate system.

Fish that tend to be used are Silver Perch, Barra and Trout. The last two fish tending to be seasonal due to temperature restrictions. Fish can be bought from a number of places, go onto the BYAP forum and you will come across many discussions regarding this. The price I recently paid for my Silver Perch were $1.50 each.

P.M. If you need any extra info and all the best.

Thanks for all your advice crew! Will do some reserch on the sites noted above.

subasurf said...

I reeeeally wish you could run it with a saltwater system but obviously you cannot...plants wouldn't be too happy about that.

Would love to have a massive tank at home that I could grow herring etc for live bait

Now your talkin!

I'm setting up (hopefully) a very large pool for salt water species regardless. Without the integration into the aquaponics system I will have to design a pretty decent bio-filtration system to keep the water healthy. But living right on the coast means I can do frequent water changes so all is good.

Would love some crays but will probably just throw in some herring and other hardy fish for live bait when it comes time to catch some bullsharks in the river this summer.

Mackerel said...

From what I've learned about keeping saltwater fish (reading / asking) it seems the bigger the pool the easier it is to keep balance. This bio-filtration system interests me?

Gotta be careful too with the legalities of keeping salt fish, I saw some brillant pinkies in a tank at an aquarium shop and wanted to know about buying them, but they said it was illegal and you needed some sort of display license that only fish shops could get. Seemed a bit suss really.

On the bullshark note, you just make me so confident in the up-coming crab dives in the swan shortly! Bloody hell I haven't had a few big blues for a few months now, aching to get out there.

Haha yeah I've just starting going night time free diving off Blackwall Reach. Still waiting for that 'encounter' to finally happen. Actually trying to catch bullies to tag them, not just for fun

The bio-filtration...the same kind of thing you would do on any normal marine or freshwater tank. Nothing special. But you're definitely right, bigger the tank the more stable the water quality.

As for legalities...no problem. My Dad's office handles most fauna collection licenses in WA

Been there done that

I prefer to freedive for the simplicity of it. 15m is achievable but normally stick to around 7