Hydroponics and aquaponics

[Cjk85]

One of my interests in the garden is sustainable food production, as well as growing in areas where the soil isn't hospitable to plants ie salinity.

So one of the big interests I have is Hydroponics, but my new pet interest now for the past couple of years - Aquaponics.
I got into Aquaponics when I started wondering if Hydroponics could be made more sustainable so you didn't have to dump nutrient after two weeks of use.

The short description of Aquaponics is Aquaculture crossed with Hydroponics.
So you may have a 3000L fish tank and 100-150 fish, joining onto several grow beds with Hydroponic type growing medium such as expanded clay or even gravel. With a water pump feeding the grow beds, several methods can be used be it ebb and flow or constant water flow through the beds.
Over time a process call nitrification begins converting fish waste into fertilizer for the plants, in turn the plants suck out the nutrients from the water cleaning it for the fish.

Out of a system of four grow beds I get enough to feed myself and house mate, often with so much excess I am left taking it into work to hand around ot anyone that wants it.

I would love to hear from others that might be interested or have a system running.

 

[ChanellG]

Wow, that seems like an awful lot of work to get started at as well as to maintain the system.

I've been wondering about all that -- areoponics is the big thing here now. I love the idea of potentially being able to grow my own food, but even the few plants that I have take a lot of time. Sometimes it's enough just for me to remember to water everything.

In my ideal world, I would have several gardens including one for herbs and one for vegetables. It's great you are able to produce so much food that you have some you can give away.

 

[Cjk85]

Actually it is very easy to maintain, getting started once you have all the parts takes an afternoon to do, maintaining only takes me 10 minutes a day, My permaculture garden is actually more work to maintain.
Usually you check the PH and do a nitrate test, as well as do anything to the plants you would normally do and your done for the day.
I also get fresh fish with ease straight from the back yard, while I don't eat fish more than 1-2 times a month.

Plants in the Aquaponics system grow like crazy and also taste better than what comes out of the ground.

 

[Yatte]

I have just read an article on an aquaponics farm producing greens and tomatoes for a restaurant in the V&A waterfront on the Cape Town Harbour. I am very interested in this technique and are going to do some research on the ways to implement this.

I do not own fish but have a big dam for my ducks and geese, we usually use the dam water to water our veggie garden as it is full of nutrients and almost like a liquid compost. Do you think this water will be suitable to create an aquaponics garden?

Except greens, herbs and tomatoes, what other kinds of veg will I be able to plant in it? Maybe Strawberries?
The quality of our soil is not to bad, but I believe this will be a great project to attempt.

 

[lovinglife]

a lot of us ponders have bogs attached to our ponds, some of us do grow vegetables in them. I did the bog to help water quality for my koi, it worked ok for the pond water, but I don't have the fish load to get the best results for my plants, 12 koi probably isn't enough. Maybe I will try different plants this time, something crazy like watermellon, probably won't work but it will be fun anyway.

 

[Cjk85]

I have just read an article on an aquaponics farm producing greens and tomatoes for a restaurant in the V&A waterfront on the Cape Town Harbour. I am very interested in this technique and are going to do some research on the ways to implement this.

I do not own fish but have a big dam for my ducks and geese, we usually use the dam water to water our veggie garden as it is full of nutrients and almost like a liquid compost. Do you think this water will be suitable to create an aquaponics garden?

Except greens, herbs and tomatoes, what other kinds of veg will I be able to plant in it? Maybe Strawberries?
The quality of our soil is not to bad, but I believe this will be a great project to attempt.

There is no reason why that would not work, but you would have to scale the system according to the amount of water in the dam, given a dam is very hard to keep a constant amount of water it. It would be very hard to regulate, where as a purpose built Aquaponics system that has a constant amount of water requires very little maintenance or forethought in planning.

You could absolutely use the water from the dam in a fish tank of 1000 to 3000L depending on the size system you want to run, it would already likely contain most of the beneficial bacteria it takes to get the nitrification process happening.

As for what you can grow, root crops like Potato don't tend to do well in Aquaponics, but Onions, Garlic, Beetroot all do very well, Beetroot grows to a silly size in a very short amount of time, so pretty much anything you grow in your Permaculture garden will do well in Aquaponics.

Right now these are some of the things I have growing:

• Beans
• Eggplant
• Tomatoes of various varieties
• Pumpkin
• Rockmellon - I think Americans call this Cantelope.
• Watermelon
• Squash
• Strawberries
• Lettuce
• Asian vegetables mainly greens of all varieties
• Herbs - Basil, Dill, Oregano, Thyme just to name a few.
• Cabbage - They grow to a silly size so much you will have soup for a month!
• Zucchini
• Celery - but not growing right now.
• Silverbeet
• Shallots
• Capsicum - Americans call these peppers, they taste so good way better than you get at a market.
• Chilli peppers
• Cauliflower
• Corn

There are a few more things I have left out, but you get the idea.
There are many system designs you can use and put together yourself if you are so inclined, I put my own together but you can buy commercial prebuilt systems, they have the advantage of professional support and backup.

Maintaining a system really isn't hard as I have said before, it just requires a PH test now and then and nitrate test to check everything is in balance, these tests will take up less than 2 minutes of your day.

 

[Cjk85]

a lot of us ponders have bogs attached to our ponds, some of us do grow vegetables in them. I did the bog to help water quality for my koi, it worked ok for the pond water, but I don't have the fish load to get the best results for my plants, 12 koi probably isn't enough. Maybe I will try different plants this time, something crazy like watermellon, probably won't work but it will be fun anyway.

I can't see why that wouldn't work, but one important factor in it working is oxygenating the water, this is probably the biggest reason as to why it wouldn't work, but a medium size aquarium air pump will solve that, they are cheap too and cheap to run.

 

[ChanellG]

[quote="Cjk85, post: 5723, member: 356"
I also get fresh fish with ease straight from the back yard, while I don't eat fish more than 1-2 times a month.
[/quote]

For me this is the most appealing aspect since I am wary of farm raised fish and so many natural bodies of water are polluted. I don't eat fish all that often anymore either, but I would love to have the option of fresh fish that was safe to eat and readily available whenever I wanted it.

 

[Yatte]

Thank y

There is no reason why that would not work, but you would have to scale the system according to the amount of water in the dam, given a dam is very hard to keep a constant amount of water it. It would be very hard to regulate, where as a purpose built Aquaponics system that has a constant amount of water requires very little maintenance or forethought in planning.

You could absolutely use the water from the dam in a fish tank of 1000 to 3000L depending on the size system you want to run, it would already likely contain most of the beneficial bacteria it takes to get the nitrification process happening.

As for what you can grow, root crops like Potato don't tend to do well in Aquaponics, but Onions, Garlic, Beetroot all do very well, Beetroot grows to a silly size in a very short amount of time, so pretty much anything you grow in your Permaculture garden will do well in Aquaponics.

Right now these are some of the things I have growing:

• Beans
• Eggplant
• Tomatoes of various varieties
• Pumpkin
• Rockmellon - I think Americans call this Cantelope.
• Watermelon
• Squash
• Strawberries
• Lettuce
• Asian vegetables mainly greens of all varieties
• Herbs - Basil, Dill, Oregano, Thyme just to name a few.
• Cabbage - They grow to a silly size so much you will have soup for a month!
• Zucchini
• Celery - but not growing right now.
• Silverbeet
• Shallots
• Capsicum - Americans call these peppers, they taste so good way better than you get at a market.
• Chilli peppers
• Cauliflower
• Corn

There are a few more things I have left out, but you get the idea.

There are many system designs you can use and put together yourself if you are so inclined, I put my own together but you can buy commercial prebuilt systems, they have the advantage of professional support and backup.

Maintaining a system really isn't hard as I have said before, it just requires a PH test now and then and nitrate test to check everything is in balance, these tests will take up less than 2 minutes of your day.

Thank you for the info, my dam is quite big so managing the water amount would not be a problem. I really need to study this before I just jump in and play.

This is so exciting, I can not wait to get started and to learn more. It will be a good way to re-use the water in my dam, rather than just to pump it out for a cleaning.

Your knowledge have really inspired me to try this out. Thank you so much.

 

[Cjk85]

I don't think your getting my point... The system needs balance between the size of your body of water and the number of plants your grow.. For a dam you would have to have 30-40 grow beds to keep ammonia levels in balance if you don't you get dead fish.

 

[Pat]

How much room do you need to have this type of system? I have always been interested in using this type of system to grow plants, I have grown plants in water for some time and used the fish waste to help the plants grow but that was on a very small scale. One good thing about your system is year round harvest.

 

[Yatte]

I don't think your getting my point... The system needs balance between the size of your body of water and the number of plants your grow.. For a dam you would have to have 30-40 grow beds to keep ammonia levels in balance if you don't you get dead fish.

I am not planning to use any fish, just the waste water of the ducks and geese, the ducks and geese will just munch on the fish. I have enough space for quite a lot of beds, I was thinking on just pumping the pond water through the system using a submersible pump. I would just need to elevate the beds, otherwise I would only be growing geese feed. But as I stated I need to do my research first.

 

[Cjk85]

Let me know how you go with that, I would be quite interested, it does make sense though. Just keep an eye for yellowing leaves or wilting, that shows they aren't getting enough nutrients.

 

[Cjk85]

How much room do you need to have this type of system? I have always been interested in using this type of system to grow plants, I have grown plants in water for some time and used the fish waste to help the plants grow but that was on a very small scale. One good thing about your system is year round harvest.

Well, it depends on the sort of system you want, the best is always to start small, from there you can always scale it up, one good example of system sizes is this page: http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/systems/backyard-aquaponic-installs/

It's a good website too on Aquaponics info.

 

[ChanellG]

The farmer's market where I shop grow hydroponic lettuce, aeroponic herbs, and they sell hydroponic tomatoes, though I am not sure where those are grown. I have thought about getting a little desktop aquarium sized system, though I would probably grow something non-edible with it since edibles do better outdoors.