Anyone in here mess with Aquaponics? We have a small raised garden now that's about 4'x16'. I was thinking it'd be pretty easy to make this water tight and replace the dirt with the gravel used for aquaponics. Then I could put a 1-200 gallon plastic tank at the end of it. Put maybe 25 blue gill in it with a small auto feeder. Then just use a cheap fountain pump and some pex to run the water from the fish tank at the end, to the far end of the garden to push water through it to filter the water, feed the plants, and aerate the water. Figured this would serve as a big boost for the garden and serve as a way to grow out some BIG bluegill to go back into the normal pond.

Thoughts? I have well water at the house, so I could use it for makeup water. Maybe run it through the garden before going into the "pond"?

I am here for gardening with my ponds as well. I ran across this searching the term "aquaponics" but I am not seeing anything to do with aquaponics yet really. I am setting up to do floating raft gardens on some of my ponds this year and came here hoping for some ideas and direction.

After 4 years of study and exploring a thousand ideas on paper I think I am ready to venture into aquaponics. Our weather is so cold here that we can be in the low 20's F the first week of July and with average first frost at September 17th we commonly don't get much of a growing season for gardening. I figured with the plants on the water it would help to protect from frost and allow me to plant earlier and grow later into the year. It also removes watering issues which are quite a headache for me.

As for your idea, I am not sure that 25 bluegill will cover too many plants, you might go a bit bigger in scope on the aquarium side. The garden is not a bad size, starting small seems wise. I have seen where people make very simple pools utilizing pallets and then plastic, you might be able to make a 500 to 1,000 gallon tank without much cost or effort and go with quite a bit more fish.

Aquaponics in "ponds" don't do so well because the level of nutrients isn't that high. If they were, then the fish would suffer because of the water quality. In an aquaponic system the level of nutrients are higher, but because of the constant inflow of better quality water (coming after the plants have removed nutrients) the fish do well. Bluegill will be tough to use, Tilapia would be better because of their ability to live in poorer water quality.

I was reading your cold weather summary, and then looked to see your location.

At first glance, I saw "Dreary Idaho."

Theo, that general part of Idaho does have some dreary winter weather. Of course, nothing like "back East."