# Above ground Pool - Call Me Crazy



## WriterontheHill (Jan 10, 2014)

I've decided I'm going to go nuts and experiment with growing some fish this year. I love catfish and they're pretty hardy. I've raised them in the past, but in a pond. I don't have a pond here, so this is going to be quite new for me.

Here's what I have:

Old above ground Intex pool. I think it's 18x48. 
Pump
Lots of room
Lots of seeds
No top soil
Determination 

Here's what I plan to do:
Our yard has been scraped and dug up. The resulting grass is doing great, along with local plants. My garden the past two years? Not so much. I plan to use the stock pump without the filter to pull water from the bottom of the pool to the raised beds I install next to the pool. The water will filter through the beds and into the pipe to pump back into the pool. 

The most money I plan to spend is on a hose extension. 

I'm aware that I'm going into this with a lot of optimism and may just end up with a big mess, though I'm one of those people that has no concept of failure. If something doesn't work, I'll change it. 

My biggest problem is funds, but I'll work around that. It's why I am using the stock pump instead of buying extra. That will come later when it's in my budget.

I don't plan on having a ton of fish, just a few at the start. There's a lot of rocks around here, so I'm going to try to make the inside of the 'pond' as fish friendly as possible. It will also be fun to teach my kids to fish for their dinner. We can't go to on a real fishing trip because of our autistic child's obsession with water.

I thought about using tilapia, but in our climate that's not possible without a lot of extra effort that I can't put out right now. This project is pretty ambitious as it is with my health limitations, but again - failure isn't an option  I tend to push myself far beyond what people say I should.


I'm interested in input concerning something about the chickens I plan to get, along with the possibility of a duck or two. Catfish are scavengers and if during the spring, summer, and fall I allow the chickens to poop in the pond, will that be too hard on the bio-filtering effects of the garden? I understand the resulting manure would be great, but will the water suffer too much? The bottom drain/pump hole will not have a large screen over it, I plan to put some rocks around it to keep small fish from being sucked through. Will this make the water too cloudy or toxic to the fish? 

I do NOT have it built yet. So it will be a simple matter to just allow a duck or two instead of placing part of the coop over part of the pond. I plan on a small flock of 12 hens with 1 rooster. 

Thanks ahead of time for your input. As I am able to get this going (One the ground isn't frozen!), I'll post pictures.


----------



## sisterpine (May 9, 2004)

It sounds like you have some interesting plans going on in your brain LOL. I am a bit concerned by your physical limitations or health issues as well as an autistic child who is obsessed with water to the point that you cannot take your children fishing. Are you certain there will be enough of you to keep said child safe around a pool that it present all of the time?


----------



## WriterontheHill (Jan 10, 2014)

Yes  

She's almost 12 and knows how to swim. She takes classes, including pool safety. We can't take her to a large body of water, this pool is the one we used last summer. I'm not worried about it at all. Something like a lake or the ocean is out of the question. We go to the creek more than pool swimming, it's a mountain creek that never gets more than ankle deep, except in some natural pools that are about thigh deep.

I have lupus, so I have flares that will make me very tired or sore when I'm in the sun too much. Good thing I've been living up North for the last while! If I was back in NC it would really be bad.

Everything that requires a lot of physical labor will be done during my periods of remission. Just told my husband about the ducks...LOL, he had no idea about that. I told him...

"I decided that one or two ducks would be a good addition for the fish pond because they're....OK, because I want them."


----------



## Roadking (Oct 8, 2009)

Sounds like an interesting idea...will be looking for updates, and good luck!

Matt


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

Do your Homework before getting started, A big pool will require alot of growing beds to filter the water enough to keep the fish alive. Alot of growing beds require alot of work and expence to set-up. 

If you do not have alot of beds then you will have to either change out alot of the pool water often or some type of filter---again to keep the fish alive. 

If you use a big pool and only a few fish, then your vegetable beds will not produce very good.

Throwing some numbers out---



A aquaponic set-up needs to be balanced so everything works good. If you have a 6000 gal pool(18ftx48") you will need 1000 to 2000 fish(according to what you put in it could need more). If you were to cut 55 gal barrels in 1/2 as your grow beds You will need about 300 of them. Then you will need a BIG pump set-up big enough to flood and drain them.

And I for Sure would not want the chickens pooping in the water--even though I have heard of people trying that.


----------



## K.B. (Sep 7, 2012)

catfish are very tolerant of poor water conditions. If you are only putting a few fish in the pool, they could probably get by with very little filtration (or supplemental feed), just like my comets/koi do in my 12' intex pool right now. Some new fish showed up in the fall (koi by the color), so there are at least a dozen in there right now. 

The intex pumps have a high flow rate which good for your water turn-over rate. 

My only concern would be starting with a good media for your grow beds. I couldn't tell from the OP if you were planning on just using garden soil (not recommended) or other soil-less media.

I have seen many reports of people trying to push the numbers on fish and ending up with trouble. The higher the ratio of gallons:fish, the more resilient the system.


----------



## WriterontheHill (Jan 10, 2014)

Thank you for the input!

I'm going to be using a large filtration bed system, enough to grow vegetables for a family of 7. If I need to add new water it won't be too hard, tons of it runs down the mountain and into our yard. I'll get a picture sometime of the one area where it looks like a spring bubbling out of the ground (but isn't).

Would it be possible or a good idea to add in some goldfish for extra attractiveness and added nutrition for the water? My small pond in NC did really well with goldfish through the winter- it was a harsh one with a lot of ice, snow, and freezing weather.


----------



## K.B. (Sep 7, 2012)

I have not tried goldfish and catfish together in my tanks, but they are both very hardy fish, so they may fit well together. It is on my list of things to do with my tanks. I will probably go with some koi fingerlings rather than goldfish, as they can get larger and I am interested in trying them for eating at some point (I've heard that canned carp is similar in flavor and texture to canned tuna fish).


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

The amount of bed is really more stocking ratio as well as feed plan, then size of the tank.
Problem with a large tank and small stocking ratio is low nutrient concentration.
You would need to do something like a nutrient film technique, moving as much water as you can through the bed. even a tiny bed. 

most folks I think aim for 1/2 lb of fish per gallon, your pool holds at 4' depth almost 26,000 gallons x .05 = 1,300 lbs of fish potential at that low/medium stocking density.

Now at that density , feeding the fish , is feeding the beds, more you feed (the fish will only eat so much, but you could fed twice a day, or once every other day) More they eat faster they grow but more they pollute the water. More Fish, More Feed ,More Bed. On a lax feeding schedule, 1 to 1 ratio (Tank/Bed) wold be fine, on a full blown feed schedule 1:2 would be in order, at that 4' depth you have 3456 cubic feet,
a grow bed with 1' of medium for a 1:1 would need to be 36' x 96'...

So your kind of out of the traditional Aquaponics thing. Unless you want to be that large, Grow rafts and a few large beds, very light stocking , add fatheads and bream to the mix and I think you would be ok. 
The Fatheads and bream will eat a lot of naturally occurring food stuff the cats wont, and in turn then be feed for the cats. Add the minnows first, then the Bream and cat fish.


----------



## secuono (Sep 28, 2011)

You might want to check out koi pond forums. Some of them have used the bog area to grow veggies. They also have tons of threads on how to make your own filters.
Tossing in poop is only going to cause ammonia to spike and possibly kill the fish. 
NO animal eats poop, other than dung beetles, lets just stop wishing that they did....It's not good for anyone. 
You can get catfish food in 50# bags for cheap at farm stores. Get them that, make a good size filter, stuff with bio media, let the pond grow algae and let them grow. Don't bother with rocks in the pond, it only hides and traps dirt. Once the algae grows, the fish will be quite happy.


----------



## K.B. (Sep 7, 2012)

||Downhome|| said:


> most folks I think aim for 1/2 lb of fish per gallon, your pool holds at 4' depth almost 26,000 gallons x .05 = 1,300 lbs of fish potential at that low/medium stocking density.


I think something got off with the calculations... Should be around a thousand cubic feet of water in a 18' round pool that is 4' deep = ~7500 gal.

still a lot of potential room for plenty of fish. just depends how intensive you want the system to be.


----------



## K.B. (Sep 7, 2012)

secuono said:


> You might want to check out koi pond forums. Some of them have used the bog area to grow veggies. They also have tons of threads on how to make your own filters.
> Tossing in poop is only going to cause ammonia to spike and possibly kill the fish.
> NO animal eats poop, other than dung beetles, lets just stop wishing that they did....It's not good for anyone.
> You can get catfish food in 50# bags for cheap at farm stores. Get them that, make a good size filter, stuff with bio media, let the pond grow algae and let them grow. Don't bother with rocks in the pond, it only hides and traps dirt. Once the algae grows, the fish will be quite happy.


Flushing manure into aquaculture ponds is a common practice in low tech locations. It provides a nutrient base for an algae bloom.

Perhaps the OP was thinking along the lines of an above ground version of this:
http://gardenpool.org/


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

K.B. said:


> I think something got off with the calculations... Should be around a thousand cubic feet of water in a 18' round pool that is 4' deep = ~7500 gal.
> 
> still a lot of potential room for plenty of fish. just depends how intensive you want the system to be.



OP stated 18x48 but perhaps I misread that lol , thinking it was 18 wide x 48' long... not 18' round x 48" deep... lol

But upon reconsideration I should of figured the latter size.


----------



## K.B. (Sep 7, 2012)

believe me, I WISH my intex pools held 20+K gallons! I wouldn't have to be working on a monster in-ground tank right now...


----------



## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

Something else to think about is you can not flood and drain this huge amount of grow beds at one time----the pool would be dry-----fish flapping on the bottom. It would have to be done in sections.


----------



## WriterontheHill (Jan 10, 2014)

It's going to be a closed system, not flood and drain. I should have pointed that out. The Intex pump will push the water into the beds, then pull back all day long. When I install the solar panel and wind generator (this year or next) it will be left to turn on and off itself.

There's a constant flow of water from the mountain. Even during the drought of 2012 we had a tiny stream coming from underground the sump pump and other sources that converge to create a spring-like 'fountain'. If it can be done, there will be a pipe pounded into that and fresh water trickling in all the time.

The little weird spring/run off area has caused a big marshy area under our apple trees. I have to clean the whole area out, there's weeds that came in from a dump load of dirt choking out my herbs. I have elderberry seeds and need to purchase other native herb seeds like boneset and the like. Whatever will help reduce the mud problem. 

I'm putting yet another small fish pond down in this area for the little frogs that have been taking up residence in the marshy place. 


The rocks and such - I don't really mind dirt. I want this to feel as natural as possible to the fish. Eventually this will become - hopefully- a nearly closed loop system. When our youngest is a little older we'll be changing the above ground pool part into an inground natural pond. It will fill will solely run-off/spring water and rain, feed the garden, and provide a place for local wild life to hang out.

Yeah...I'm an ambitious little cuss.


----------



## Pinehollow (Oct 15, 2013)

Two comments...

#1, most farm raised cat fish have fin spines. one may.. or may not poke holes in the soft sides of the pool. You may want to research a different fish.. pan fish blue gill or perch maybe?

#2. There is_ nothing _that will fowl up your water faster than ducks will... except maybe geese! IF you have any degree of physical issues or need to have time to spend with your autistic child/family... you may want to develop a system to be as simple and easy to manage as possible. Minus the ducks.. go to a park........ just my thoughts. good luck!


----------



## WriterontheHill (Jan 10, 2014)

Thanks for the input! As an update, turns out I can't use the pool. Tree limb fell and stabbed it in big gouges. I'm just going to make a small fish pond, wetland. Maybe next year


----------



## MorningStarAcre (Apr 5, 2016)

As I was searching for information on pump sizing for my soon to be up and running aquaponics system I came across this thread! I am actually using the same size old pool for our system! I will be using rafts initially and adding grow beds as time and money allow. At least initially I will not be stocking to capacity! I want to make sure all the kinks are worked out before going hog wild!! I have the pool up and about half full of water. I will finish filling it this week. I will be using insulation sheet boards (since they are super cheap) as my rafts. I will build a sump pump for waste filtration. What I am trying to decide is what size pump to use? Also, do I need an oxygenator or will there be enough oxygen simply through using a pump? I will be putting in channel catfish and sunfish fingerlings and mosquito fish because it is that time of year! Suggestions? Thanks!!


----------

