| Aqua what you ask, Aquaponics is the growing of Veggies or other
plants from basically fish poo, a sort of Hydroponic variation.
Aquaponics in Australia owes it's fame to the efforts of Joel
Malcolm, Joel has toyed with Aquaponics for many years and has made
into a business,
Backyard Aquaponics, Joel has been on a few gardening
shows and written many articles on the subject and also developed
the correct tanks, grow beds, piping into various size kits you can
take home and DYI install, Joel and the team will even do the
installation for you and survey you backyard and design a system
best suited for you surroundings. You don't have to buy a ready made
system, you can build from anything as you can see by the pictures
below. The concept you can see in the pictures below. In short you need a tank of any size for fish, a container to use as a grow bed, grow media like gravel, blue metal, clay balls, fish; edible ones preferably but gold fish can be also used, a pump and pipes. The very basics explained, Pump water from the fish tank into the grow bed and drain back into the fish tank, the grow bed(s) are just a big filter and veggie growth is about the same rate as hydroponics, or 3-4 times faster than soil veggies without chemicals, so completely organic. |
You can click on the pictures to see full size
 Bathtub system for under $100 |
 Bathtub has Gold fish and small native Pygmy Perch |
 Complete Bathtub System |
 Mint Grown in Bathtub system, about 8 weeks |
 This was My first Effort under $200 |
 Version 2 of First Effort |
 My serious system, around $4000 |
 System is fuelled by 50 Rainbow Trout |
 System 2 Veggies at end of June 2009 |
 Same Veggies end of July 2009 |
 Constructing Joel's Commercial System |
 The Heart of Joel's Commercial System |
 First Planting in Joel's System |
 Same plants a few weeks later |
| Well there is 4 examples of system's to get you thinking, as you
can see it can be cheap or expensive, but it certainly is addictive,
once you start you will want to go better, the Bathtub system costs
are, Tub from salvage $50, Sink (used as grow bed) from salvage $5,
Pump from Ebay $30 plus a few dollars for pipe and fittings, so
under $100 can get you started. Now I have you thinking visit the
BackYard Aquaponics
Forum also supplied by Joel, the forum is a wealth of
information, feel free to join up, or just visit as a guest, my
username in the forum is Nocky, and Joel Malcolm's username is
Earthbound.
Will now supply some links to the above systems so you can follow from construction to production, plus links to a couple of my favourite system's as well, if you want to know anything about Aquaponic's feel free to Email Me and try and visit the BYAP shop in Jandakot, if you contact the BYAP shop or Fresh by Nature tell them Nocky sent you, get me some brownie points. |