Week 131: Organic Aquaponics: 9 Goldfish, no supplements, no pH changes, costs $5.05 a week!

This is my Organic Aquaponics system, the technical term for this system design is iAVs, also referred to as Sandponics. This supplements my personal food supply very well and I use it to germinate seeds and to strike cuttings. It has 9 large goldfish and the only fertilizer used is fish food. There are no supplements or external filters. The pH is stable and hasn't needed adjusting in 2 years. Power here costs 30c per kilowatt, we have a 12 watt water pump running 2 hours a day, and a 12 watt air pump (with battery backup) that runs 24 hours a day. I check the system once a day, feed the fish and maintain the garden and that's it.
It currently uses 294 grams of fish food per week which costs $4.40 because we are buying in small amounts (for now). If we were buying in bulk (like we normally do) it would cost us $1.47 - (remember that fish food costs a lot more in Australia). If we were buying fish feed in bulk amounts the total running cost per week would about $2.20.
Follow us on reddit at / organicaquaponics and facebook at / organicaquaponics . The website for iAVs / Sandponics is at iavs.info/

[@iAVs-Sandponics]

This project survived intense heat, constant heavy rains, a huge cyclone and 3 days with no power and we didn't lose one fish (which is very important to us)!.........
The backstory behind this system is that it was a tiny demo project to introduce the property owners to iAVs/Sandponics. It was only meant to be a temporary build while we got a professional greenhouse built. The original plan was to relocate the goldfish into our 110,000L pond when this system was shut down......The system gets exposed to shade so we knew it couldn't be permanent........ anyway..........well, life had different plans, and after lots of dramas, including the deaths of some very close friends, this project kept going......even when I was going through intense mourning and grief and ignored this project, it kept going.......
so now I share it as an example of a tiny demo system that costs less than a decent cup of coffee per week but brings us lots of pleasure, and supplements our food.......What you can't see is the thousands of dollars worth of plants that have been 'born' out of this system from seeds and cuttings. Even the goldfish now have a retail value of over $500.....if this neglected trainwreck of a system that runns on 12 watts, no supplements and no pH changes can still do fine despite being massively UNDER stocked, imagine what a properly functioning system could do!

[@POVmauritius]

do the water constantly flowing in the sand bed or you turn it on and off?

[@iAVs-Sandponics]

It is connected to a timer, the water pumps turns on for 15 minutes, every 2 hours, during the day only. This reduces electricity needs and allows time for the grow beds to drain and supply the plants and microbes with high levels of oxygen. When the solids on the surface dry out it also increases the rate of decomposition.

[@karimhayes3134]

i used gin gin quartz sand for mine not working to well. can you name what you used?

[@iAVs-Sandponics]

Quartz sand in the range of .3 to 1.2mm. Have you been to the iAVs.info website? What particle size is your sand? If you share some more details of your set up I can help you, I suggest sharing the details on the website.