Most aquaponics guides assume soft water and a long season.
You have neither. Your pH climbs when every guide says it should fall, your EDTA iron quits above 6.5, and the bed you built in May has to survive January. This site is about the version of aquaponics that actually works here.
The system this is written from
- Location
- Syracuse, UT · 4,300 ft
- Source water pH
- 8.1
- Carbonate hardness
- ~180 ppm
- Media
- Lava rock, 3 seasons
- Fish
- Goldfish · ornamental
- Coldest run
- 12 °F, unheated
- Water used
- ~40 gal / year
Every article here comes out of this system — including the parts that failed.
Three ways to work together
Remote consult
You describe what your system is doing, I tell you what to change, and you get a written summary the same day. Phone or video, evenings included, anywhere.
On-site consult
I come look at it. Water tested on the spot, plumbing and siting reviewed, and a plan you can build from — or a list of what to fix on the one you have.
Pond conversion
You already own the hard part. A grow bed, a pump, and a tuned siphon turn a decorative koi pond into something that grows food, without touching the fish.
Local conditions change the answers
Utah State University Extension has spent decades writing excellent horticulture material for this state, and I link to it constantly — it's the best source there is for pest biology and planting dates along the Wasatch Front.
What nobody has written is what changes when the bed is flooded and drained six times an hour, when the water is hard enough to resist every pH correction you've read about, and when the growing season ends in October. That gap is what I write about.