Hello, I'm Pete from Jacksonville, Texas, and I wanted to share what very little experience I have and see if anybody has information they are willing to share. We have a Koi pond which has been up and running since 1997. Last year after a trip to Epcot we decided to try Aquaponics using the waste from the fish to feed plants. We tried a sort of a tree effect with PVC pipe going in a circle around a brace with holes in the pipe. The plants were inserted in the holes and the pond water trickled down the pipe and back into the pond. We used a fountain pump to move the water to the top of the pipe. Bottom line was it didn't work for me because so much sludge got on the roots of the plants that it clogged up the PVC. With no cures for it's ills, I abandoned the project.
This year we have a different approach which began in mid to late January, 2013. I bought an ugly (as my wife describes it) sheep and goat feeder, which is five feet long, but two feet wide and about 18" deep. I drilled a one inch hole in the middle of it and put 1" PVC through it and out to the pond. For grow medium we used some bags of the rubber ground cover material you can get at Lowe's. Probably not a great choice, but I was afraid the gravel would be too heavy, and other choices were too expensive, so on impulse we got this at Lowe's. The "planter" fills and empties about six times an hour by use of a bell siphon. The water from the pond is pumped in continuously and it fills up and empties every ten minutes or so.
Right now I have two types of lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, one strawberry plant, some basil, thyme, and oregano planted in the grow medium with no soil. I think I'll add five catfish this coming Thursday to add more "poo" to the mix. Right now I have 3 large Koi and one large goldfish in the pond.
The plants seem to be thriving, but I have had continuous problems getting the bell siphon to work. Any variable that is changed seems to mess up the whole process and the siphon doesn't want to shut off wen the planter empties and it never fills up again. I had it working for a week and then added a vortex filter to help remove solids, and now the siphon is being rude to me again, so I may have to remove the filter. We had about an inch of rain last night which raised the water level in the pond to the base of the planter drain, which may have changed the siphon.....so who knows!! It's a work in progress. Maybe raising the planter to give the drain more fall would work, but that's a serious challenge, considering the weight.
