aquaponics
 

Has anyone looked into this seemingly superior way of combining animal and garden? It is a perfect setup for greenhouse growing as well.

The basic idea is to use effluent from a well stocked fish pond to provide nutrient (read: fish poo) heavy water with which you grow green-leaf vegetables in hydroponic gravel beds (no dirt, just pebbles). This water, now oxygenated and filtered, is fed back into the pond. Fantastic!

As a fish hobbyist this sounds like fun to me as well... I've been wanting a pond for quite some time and this could be the perfect excuse :banana:

Here are some starter links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics

A good webforum
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/

and here are some amazing pics:

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/images/growth.jpg

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/images/oops2.jpg

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/im...ustomatoes.jpg

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/images/roots.jpg

Re: aquaponics
 

I love the idea. I like fish, I like fresh vegetables. Good links.

Now if I can just convince my wife that this is a great aquarium...

Re: aquaponics
 

I independently stumbled on the idea trying to come up with a way to maximize food production on a small lot. My original concept was fish in a 50 gallon+ container with the water being piped into a zig-zagging pipe system above the fish through which the water for the hydroponic vegetables would grow. A bug light above this whole contraption would bring in food for the fish. The pump and the bug light would be powered by solar or some other free, renewable form of energy.

I want to slap one of these together soon. I think I'll modify the design to use pebbles as strata for the plants, seems like a good idea for the plants and fish. I'd also like to try it with freshwater prawns or some other lobstrosity.

Re: aquaponics
 

REV,

Crayfish would do great in a tank like this. They can get pretty big, but they will fight each other so you probably couldn't have too many.

A great way to get fish food is to compost the extra/useless plant matter and start an earthworm farm. Then you can toss some worms in daily. The fish will also eat any insects that land on the water. (probably a good amount)

Re: aquaponics
 

I've found that crawdads often live in remarkably dense groups in the wild, the difference is territory. If you build your tank with plenty of hidey-holes you can have lots of lobsters, crawdads or other crustaceans which are known to prey on eachother. You just have to design it in such a way that they're still easy to harvest. Lots of bottomless vertical tubes are useful for this, the crawdads will hide in the tube, but the tubes(a unitized mat if you can imagine) can be lifted out leaving only the crawdads which can then be gathered with a net. In operations where they are grown in mud, often there will be a net under the mud that can be lifted. The mud passes through but the crawdads can't.

Re: aquaponics
 

This is an amazing idea!
My goal in life is to Own Tropical Islands.

I can imagine an aquaponic system would be quite helpful for self-sufficiency.

I just had an idea for an aquaponic dome in the Sahara desert.
Built with a diameter of 10 miles and a height of 5 miles.

This dome produces clean H20 from the air.
This dome's numerous helical turbines harvests wind energy.
The dome harvests energy from the sun.
The dome uses the H20 for aquaponics.
The dome splits the H20 with energy to produce and store hydrogen.

The tentative name is the S-Windome.

Re: aquaponics
 

Great idea-you and Pauly Shore will make a fine couple. :D

Re: aquaponics
 

LOL.... 1, 2, 3..... choo loose tha piiiillooow!!!

Re: aquaponics
 

Perhaps brackish fish and plants could desalinate water?

However, I dunno about the whole dome thing. F growing stuff in the desert. It's a desert.

Re: aquaponics
 

The scale of the dome Manifespo proposes makes it impractical, but the desert isn't as inhospitible as it would appear, if you have the right tech.

http://www.rexresearch.com/airwells/airwells.htm

Adjust the volume of processed air according to circumstance.

I've been reading up on people who have built aquaponics setups. As one would expect, it is very important to make sure you don't have more fish or what have you contaminating the water than the plants can process. It stands to reason that the plants should be established before the fish are introduced unless you want to mess around with water changes and filtration before the system is fully online. The animal component generates huge ammounts of nutrient-rich waste so any such system either needs to be light on animals or heavy on plants.