Hi All, New to DYI AP, A little about me and where I plan to go with my AP plan. I currently have a 1+ acre pond that holds approx. 6.5 Acre ft of water that can be made up with well water, as needed. The Pond is stocked with Channel Cat, Copper Nose Blue Gill, Large mouth Bass, Read rear, and a few annual tilapia. I feed the fish with a feeder, and have a diffuser aerator installed and runs 24/7, 3 seasons. I currently have approx. 500lbs of fish in the pond and pull 10 to 20% of the fish out a year, depending on W/R and creel studys conducted by fish sampling.

All that said I plan to, as soon as possible, setting up a aquaponics system that will clean a small amount of the total water volume. I will be pulling from the one and only feed area in hope to nutrient unload that area of the pond some.

I have kinda decided to, run a swirl pre-skimmer settling drum, with a conical bottom pull off and then feed the water into gravel bed(s) with siphon level control, pre-filter socks,and worms for beneficial solids control. The flow will then run into floating beds and out to the pond. I will have a sump area for all over flow from all the tanks,beds,etc and the ability to control re-circulation and and restrict flow back to the pond if necessary. All tanks and tubs will have bottom aeration to clean the bio-balls, pre-filters and such.

I do not know if I will start with a green house or not, but will have a fence to keep critters out and bird netting on top of most stuff with some sun screening for the west side of the different beds to block some of the west sun as needed.

I have not exactly decided where I need to aerate to keep the DO high enough to benefit the release of ammonia and nitrite/nitrate change needed to improve the water return to the pond.

This is my first trip to a AP site, but I have watched many hours of you tube and read many forum threads on this subject. I do want to be ahead of the curve a little, when I start, so it is not so much trial and error. There is a lot of internet knowledge and experiences that can help one not have too many false starts, I hope.

I have not decided if I want or need UV for my set up or not.

Sorry to be so long winded but I will do a lot of reading here before I do much of anything. I appreciate all who pass on their good and bad experiences to help others who want to try a new way of doing things.