Selecting Fish For Your Aquaponic Garden

When selecting fish for your aquaponic garden there are a great many things you will need to consider and they will all have an effect on your overall system.

Water temperature is vital to many fish species and failure to comply with those needs will result in tragedy.  Goldfish and koi will live in much colder water than say … tilapia.  That doesn't mean that you can only raise decorative fish if you’re not in a financial position to heat a large fish tank but they do become a serious option.  Look into the species that live in the local bodies of water for ideas.  For example, trout and kokanee salmon can deal with some cooler waters and live in the lakes nearby my garden.  Perhaps someday I can use my aquaponic garden to help repopulate the dwindling sport fish numbers …

Cost of heating is however, something to think about.  The monthly costs to heat a large body of water and maintain it can be staggering.  If you don’t believe me, ask someone with a backyard hot tub what’s cheaper, buying it or running it.  My money is on running it, I've asked a few hot tub owners myself.  Sure you aren't going to need to keep your water quite that hot, but you will be heating more water and moving it around where it has many chances to shed heat that you paid for.



Edible fish will have different dietary needs than ornamental fish, so a different food source will be required depending on which you choose for your garden.  Will you be growing duckweed to supplement the diet of your fish or will you be purchasing something factory made for feed?  If you’re growing your own fish food you will need to be certain that all the nutritional needs of your fish species are met, there are a host of good websites and YouTube channels to help you with this.  If you've decided it would be better to buy premade fish feed you will need to make sure that it is food safe, if you plan on eating those fish or not!  The food that gets left in the aquaponic system will break down and begin to feed, or poison, the plants depending on how much of it there is and what it’s made of.  Even if all the food is consumed, it still needs to be food safe because when it comes back as waste … it becomes food for your plants.

How large will your fish grow and how much space will each one require to get to that size?  Different species of fish need different things.  A general recommendation for tilapia is as many as 1 per gallon, which seems crowded to me, whereas people will recommend a minimum of 10 gallons per koi.  If you’re going to put all this effort into your aquaponic garden, why not do just a little more research first?  My goldfish have somewhere around 2.5 gallons of water in the system per fish just because that’s how it worked out but they were just fine with only 1 gallon each before …

If you plan on marketing your fish, is there a market for this variety?  What will these fish be worth to you after the cost of feed, pumps and the rest of your overhead?  When you are getting involved with aquaponics on a hobby level this doesn't really matter quite as much but if you plan on making a business with aquaponics, this may make or break it.  In some regions the fresh produce will more than cover the entire running costs, however in others the really big money item will be the fresh fish.  I can’t say what’s going to be better where you are, but I will remind you to look into it before you get started.  Ah, the joys of a hobby garden … my fish are just helpful pets but if I were to sell them I suspect I would get enough to replace them with at least twice as many!

Once you've begun to establish what you require for a fish species, you can begin to design your aquaponic garden to meet those assorted needs and grow nice, healthy fish.  In the example of my garden, goldfish were selected for a few simple reasons.  First off I did not require fish that I could consume, and getting edible fish would have meant a great pile of paperwork to try that locally.  Secondly, goldfish are sturdy.  Temperature changes that would kill many decorative aquarium fish are of little concern to these hardy little goldfish.  Thirdly, even at their largest, a goldfish will only reach about 12 inches in length.  That meant I would be able to have larger numbers of fish, in a hobby sized garden, without overburdening the bio-filters or stressing out the fish.  Fourth and finally, as I have mentioned in many of my YouTube videos, goldfish are CHEAP!  I mean really cheap.  I could get one good quality koi for the same price as about 40 feeder goldfish so …  In a starter system, it still seems like a solid financial choice to go with a more affordable option.

Just a few things that you will want to bear in mind when first selecting your aquaponic fish!
Share & enjoy!
JT Bear                                                                                                        #JTBear

Here's a lovely garden set up from YouTube called - Aquaponics April

Growing Food in Aquaponics

Ah, the age old quest for food.  Primitive man learned that by planting seeds along moist river banks, gathering time could be greatly reduced.  This naturally lead to more free time for what mattered, like hunting and trying to control that ‘fire’ thing.  If you think about it, this was mankind beginning to learn about aquaponics.  We just didn't really quite understand how it worked.  All that mattered was that it did.

For the modern gardener getting involved in aquaponics the basic desire is not to different from that of our ancient gardening ancestors, we just have a wide variety of books and videos to help us along now!  Wow, is that ever true for aquaponics.  YouTube is filled with people working on developing their own aquaponic gardens and trying new ways to get even better results than before.  New filter ideas, new flow patterns, new fish and plant combinations but all aquaponics.

Aquaponic gardens offer the opportunity to grow two separate food supplies in the same balanced ecosystem.  The fish, often an edible variety such as tilapia, are kept in the tanks and produce their waste products just as they would any where else.  As the water re-circulates, these wastes are carried through bacterial colonies in the bio-filters.  The bacteria convert the waste into a readily acceptable plant food as the water moves on towards the grow beds.  In the garden beds, floating or media based, these nutrients are absorbed by the roots they rush past, thereby cleaning the water for its return to the fish tank.

Since the water is being reused in the system, rather than being drained into the soil and lost, the amount of water required to grow fresh fruit and vegetables is greatly reduced.  Some estimates place water demands of an aquaponic garden at 2-10% of what a more traditional garden would use to grow the same crops.  In addition to the produce grown, since fish are required to provide the nutrients in the water there is also the ability to raise meat in these gardens.  Tilapia, perch, trout, carp, shrimp … basically anything you can think of if it would live in freshwater.  Even that is becoming less of an issue as some aquaponic research centers are beginning to work with salmon and seaweeds to create a similar ecosystem for saltwater seafood.  Exceptionally important in these times where our ocean waters are become more soiled by our bad behaviors.

Almost anyone can grow top quality produce with ease in a simple aquaponic garden.  Look at what I've managed to do!

I started off with a kiddie pool for the fish, some coffee cans for my plants and an old Tupperware juice jug that I would water the plants with.  Granted, I've bought and made some rather huge improvements since then but the point is I started off with little more than desire and a bit of unused backyard.  From that moment on, I've been hooked on aquaponics.  Start small and go steady, while your system is developing grow things like kitchen herbs or leafy greens.  As you get more comfortable with the process, add some more garden space or a few more fish, take it slowly at first and you will be very happy with your new aquaponic garden.  After a year or so, once the bacteria have set up solid colonies and your school of fish has some nice numbers, try growing some fruiting plants like peppers or delicious fresh strawberries.

With all of the books and videos available, it never been easier to get involved with aquaponic gardening.  To see how my garden has changed and grown over the years, check out my YouTube channel JT Bear and feel free to ask any questions you may have.  I try to help when I can!  Until next time, happy harvests to you!