Fish pond aquaponics

>>1993034
>I browse the aq general enough to know that any artificial fish environment needs to have frequent water changes.
not true.
water changes are solely for nitrate and phosphate export.

plants consume nitrates and phosphates, so in aquaponics water changes aren't necessary or helpful.

what is helpful is using fish and plants you can eat. Tilapia are the most common fish grown. Usually you have chickens eating the plants and insects. Their shit drops through a screen into the pond, and the tilapia eat the shit. Then the water polluted with fish waste is used to fertilize grains and other food crops, some of which is fed to the chickens.

if you're in a temperate zone where freezing is a problem you'll probably need a greenhouse for both the fish and the plants' sake.

>>1993037
I was thinking more along the lines of the fact that since I will have to perform water changes for my decorative fish pond to keep my goldfish healthy, then why not put that pond water to use and rig up an aquaponics system that runs off of the pond water collected during the water changes. So, in essence, the whole aquaponics angle is just a side thing to the fish pond itself.

I'm just wondering if it's worth the effort in the long run, due to how large I am planning this pond to be. Or if I should simply stick with a boatload of buckets and simply dumping the pond water down the drain.

No, none of that is necessary. How do you think fish ever even existed if it was impossible for them to live in ponds without massive human efforts? It's a pretty simple matter of not overstocking the pond and MAYBE a few lava rock filters if you want to be fancy and a teeny waterfall to circulate. I had a koi pond about as big as a large deep hot tub and it never required anything like that besides a few extraordinary circumstances with duck weed and a goldfish invasion both necessitating a full vacuuming out.

If you're going to have a bunch of super fancy fat shit goldfish who are too deformed to swim right like ranchu or something then yeah maybe you're going to have to run it like a hospital tank but if you want just some koi, regular goldfish, or pond stock fish then all of this is unnecessary.

Of course if you're interested in aquaponics all to itself maybe there is something neat you can do with it but it's entirely unnecessary just to your decorative pond scheme.

>>1993044
>since I will have to perform water changes for my decorative fish pond to keep my goldfish healthy, then why not put that pond water to use and rig up an aquaponics system that runs off of the pond water collected during the water changes.
because it's an unnecessary extra step, and wastes water.

the point of aquaponics is to use the plants to remove fish waste so you don't have to do water changes. Doing water changes just kinda defeats the whole point of it.

>I'm just wondering if it's worth the effort in the long run, due to how large I am planning this pond to be.
the way you're planning it, not really.

it doesn't save you the trouble of water changes, all it does is fertilize some plants. Dump the change water on the lawn if you want, you're still doing water changes when you could just be growing plants.

>>1993047
Fan tails are regular goldfish. And did you not read the part where I specifically mentioned I'm going to use the walstad method? And that it's going to be at least ten feet deep?

>>1993050

So you're fine bro. I was merely extrapolating on the points of concern, of which you are clear. Settle down. You shouldn't have to perform any regular frequent water changes at all unless you're overstocking your pond or something unusual happens. Regular evaporation and adding back that water plus the natural cycles in the pond will keep it clean enough. There are other products meant for keeping it clear to. I mean maybe an annual backwash at most really on something that big. Goldfish are dirty fish but if you've got 15 to 20 gallons per fish then it won't be an issue.

>>1993051
I see, so the whole aquaponics angle would just be overkill. It would be easier to simply rig up some kind of trough to channel the pond water to a regular run of the mill vegetable/herb garden.

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30KB, 380x377px

>>1993034
>structure based entirely on an aquatic environment with constantly splashing water
>built of wood

>>1993478

Yeah, or even more simply just have the pond and every now and then use a skimmer to yank any hunks of vegetation overgrowth and toss them on your garden. I would only ever do anything more than scooping leaves out once a year after spawning which was right after the height of summer when the worst amount of algae grew and I only really did it to try to get the goldfish eggs out of the damn thing because they brutally outcompeted my koi. I used a regular shop vac and let it backwash on the garden and even then it was only about a half water change.

The only other measures I had was that I had a home made lava rock filter and bubbler and I had the output of the filter going through tubing above rocks to create a waterfall. But the only reason I really had that was because having moving water prevents birds of prey from being able to effectively hunt your fish.

Anything else is above what you really need but I'm sure you could get very fancy with it over time.

>>1993478
The entire point of the system is to combine plant and animal food sources into one system and dual purpose the plants for filtration for the animals.