Greetings from Palm Bay, Florida. New to site. Found using Aquaponics Map (Thanks to Wild). Been lurking on Aussie sites for some time now, but never chimed in. Have had trial system up and running for about 8 months now with limited success (1 -150 gal holding tank with koi, 1- 150 gal sump, 1 – 2’ x 10’ feedtrough style growbed with hydroton and bell siphon). Original design based on video by Murray H. – Practical Aquaponics. Had a contest going with my wife and her own home made Earthbox design. She wooped my butt through the first crops of the year. Now my system is well established with bacteria and worms in the growbed. High yield crops thus far have been- swiss chard, radishes, variegated hot peppers, asian lettuce. Okra seems to open a flower a day, so I have been getting a lot of okra, but only one at a time- so I have to freeze them. Cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe are all flowering well, but yield is still low. Tomatoes could have more flowers and yield is still low. Celery seems to like the system, as does chives, and basil. Fennel did well for a while, but then had root issues. Parsley did not seem to like it at all.
Use calcium for salt water coral tanks, pond plant food, and maxicrop for missing nutrients. Have put crushed eggshells in system for additional dissolved calcium. BT and manual removal for bug deterrents. Fish food is as natural as I have found locally (feed2-3x daily). Trying to supplement fish food with soldier fly larva from household compost.
Working on a new system (2- 190 gal holding tanks plumbed together, 1 – 6’ roung galv trough from feedstore coated with sweetwater epoxy paint as the sump, 2-30” x 12’ wooden with liner growbeds, and 1- 3’ x 7’ very expensive fiberglass growbed coated with the same epoxy paint, will probably also add some 6” and 8” NFT .) I say expensive on the fiberglass- because I had to try my hand at fabricating it myself. It turned out well -for a first timer, but not necessarily worth the effort monetarily - except to say that I made it myself. Entire system is on concrete slab and covered with shadecloth. It will be complete and running in the next week or so- Might try and move some of the original hydroton to the new system to get a jump start. Don’t know yet.
I believe that is about it. Hope that more people this side of the pond are working on getting systems up and running and reply- it would be good to hear from locals to see what success they have had and swap notes.