gday from the high country

[rotonone]

hello all

my wife and i live just out side cooma NSW. we are very interested in putting in place 2 things 1. treatment of grey water for watering of grass, trees and some vegies and 2. to set up a aquaponics system for both vegitable production as well as fish for personell use. we are very interested in getting a system up and running with in the next 12 months or so. we were at fisrt looking at trying to use the trasted grey water in the aquaponics but have been told that this is not the best idea so we are looking into the possibility of reed beads and the like then we will get the aquaponics set up later in the year.

we are looking to hopefully using a 10,000 ltr tank for the aquaponics that we have surplus but is not in the best order and the idea is to sink the tank into the ground then render the inside of the tank to become water tight. we think that when we get our reed bed set up we should be able to use some of the run off to fill the tank as well as top it up as required.

i would be interseted in talking to anyone who has some knowlege of either of the two things that we are trying to achieve

[GaryD]

Hi Rotonone,

Welcome to APHQ.

For an excellent example of a grey-water treatment system suited to small-scale operation.....see here. You should be able to scale this system down to suit your greywater output. You should also be able to grow fodder crops in some parts of it.....converting the nitrogen and phosphorus in the greywater to plant nutrients while removing them from the water.

I don't recommend using treated greywater in an aquaponics system. For what merits it may have in soil-based gardens, the presence of anti-biotics, chemicals, etc makes it a bit dodgy for use with fish.....bearing in mind that it's not just what kills fish that's the issue. Fish can be highly polluted and continue to live.....and, when you eat the fish, you harvest the pollution, too.....quite literally.

Gary