Background

This is a guide to a hit and miss, handy-man, swimming pool conversion to acquaponics set up. I thought I'd write this up so others thinking of doing the same thing could see what might work and what might not.

This project began around the middle of the 2010 calender year after my neighbour handed me one of 48 Barramundi he had harvested from his standardised acquaponics set up next door.

Not long after the government announced severe water restrictions, after a winter of virtually no rain, and keen vegetable growers like myself faced the prospect of having to pull up our gardens over the summer.

An aquaponics system seemed like a way to solve a number of issues - including what to do with your swimming pool when the kids have left home and it gets little use. How to water your vegetables in the face of severe water restrictions, and how to afford fish when the cost keeps skyrocketing.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Reducing the Pool Volume - June 2010

We started out with a relatively small pool about 25,000 litres.  The first thing I did was drain the pool which can be dangerous if your pool is embedded in clay soils - the clay swells with water and the empty pool collapses. Luckily my pool was surrounded by a supporting framework of yellow brickies sand and the pool held its shape as the water drained.

I then got a load of local river sand - approximately 15 cubic metres and distributed that into the bottom of the pool to reduce its size to around half the volume.  I also created a bund to one end (a river sand wall) which I wanted to use to section off from the fish an area for water plants which I'd read were usually destroyed by larger fish.


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