Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Stock tank & Gardening

I'm about to create a couple 4x12 raised garden beds as well as 15x30 ground level garden for growing household vegetables, fruits, etc.. I'm thinking about making the raised beds with an auto watering system where the first foot of the raised beds is a water liner, gravel and then garden soil on top, whereby the water is drawn up from the bottom. But I also have a 1/2 an acre tank stocked with catfish, redear, and FHM that will be about a 100 feet from the garden edge.

I've read about aquaponics and sybiotic relationships between growing fish and gardens together, but they are typically plastic tanks of fish and cycling the water through aquaponic boxes for the veggies in a very controlled manner.

I'm wondering if anyone has done anything like this with a stock tank and ground garden. I like the idea of pulling nutrients out of the pond and using them in the garden and perhaps some benefit going back to the pond and fish.

I searched the forum here and didn't come up with much. Are there any resources you would suggest for reading up on such a thing? Or do you have any experience with such an arrangement?

Two things:

What you are wanting to do is known as a wicking bed.

And two they're really won't be any apprecible nutrients or nitrates coming from the pond, as in a full fleged aquaponics system, where the fish fed on fish pellets are supplying nutrients to the plants via the nitrification cycle. Your density of fish in the pond just won't be high enough and your phytoplankton, FA, and macrophytes are better evolved to utilize the small amount nitrates produced, so your garden plants will lose in competition.

That said your wicking bed will certainly work with soil, as long as you don't expect much more than a water source from the pond. Make sure you can regulate the flow.