Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hi there everyone, i am emailing you all regarding some reserach we want to carryout, looking at the use of aquaponics to help improve water quality of the effluent from a aquaculture facility. Its a reasonably large trout operation in central scotland, although we propose to also run trials else where and possibiliy in a developing world context.

Initial thourghts were to use a guttered NFT system run through poly tunnels, water entering the top and being discharged back into the water course.

anyway i just wanted to collectively try and pick your brains as to whether this has been done, you think its possible, and possible thourghts on crop/system orrientations.

many thanks and i look forward to hearing from you. also if you know of any existing operations in the UK, contacts would be greatfully recieved.

many thanks
Charlie Price

Hey Charlie,
man you have some reading to do!
Welcome by the way.
C1

Charlie, i assume you mean improving effluent prior to discharge?

Sure, but why not close the loop ? Given enough plants effluent would not need to be discharged at all (or minimaly).

Crops depend of if you want to make maximum profit from the crops, or if a near zero effluent discharge is prize enough

If the crops would just be a welcome byproduct of cleaning your water then why not go with a vegetable crop that suits the climate?

Can you provide more details of the operation?


are solid wastes removed? If yes then don't expect too much sucess with anything other than herbs and leafy greens. fruiting / flowering will probably struggle.

Just don't forget to mention us as a valued source of info

Steve

hi there steve and creative, needless to say you will all be acknowledged, and all advice is massively appreciated, right i will give you some further background:

Background to my experience
well, i very almost have a PhD in aquatic ecotoxicology, a masters in aquaculture and a degree in freshwater biology (not that that means anything!) but i am massively inverested in integrated agri-aquaculture. I've grown things hyroponically, and played round with aqauponics in the past, with varrying degrees of sucess

scope of the study
First we aim to look at a trout farm, the farm has a number of facilities orriented along a burn (scottish for stream!) the hatchery facility is at the top, which is alongside a smolt facility (small salmon in f/w), and then this stream runs down and through a very high quality brown trout grow out facility (where fish are mainly bourght for restocking programmes) The main issue at this site is the seasonal (summer) effluent from the hatchery is not great quality and impacts on the ongrowing farm down stream. The farm is regulated by SEPA (scottish environmental protection agency) and as its run as an external facility of the university, we want to show a proactive and sustainable approach to maintaining water quality even abover the limits imposed.
But, and this is a big but, we are putting reserach proposals together that have much more wider reching applications (from backyard aquaponics in developing world, to more crop diverse sustainable systems in europe.

i hope i haven't lost you so far.

therefore we dont really want to take the water out of circulation in the wider sream system, but rather use aquaponics to provide not only an additional crop but also a means of improving water quality. win win scenario. Now we have the benefits of being able to trial some great ideas, and thats where i see this forum, feeding in so much valuable info, and of course needless to say we will in return, keep open and transparent records of the set up, trialling and outcomes of this reserach for all of you to keep an eye on if you want to

in answer to your questions, there is a solids removal filter but this doesn't nesacarily need to be included in the system, we could take the water with all particulates too. As for crops, we thourght we would trial a variety to look at impacts on nutrient uptake and growth rates etc.

we also have the possiblity to replicate these experiemnts either in our tropical and temperate aquarium facilities, with different fish species, and possibly under artifical light rigs.

right thats possibly too much info in one hit, so i will lket you all digest that, and look forward very much to hear any advice and your experiences.

thanks again
charlie

What type of impact are we looking at? Is there anything in the water that is particularly nasty to the farm down stream ie. Treatment chemicals? If this is the case then using very tolerant reeds and aquatic plants can be used to absorb chemicals and different substances from the water, much like greywater recyclers, these can be contained in 'reed beds' with water circulating though them then returned, or heavily planted along the banks and within the river/burn itself. Basically a natural non-contained filter.

For all other biological effluents comprised mostly of fish waste, proteins and nitrates, a aquaponics system this time comprising of edible vegetables can be put in place. Or ideally use reed beds to filter out the nasties, followed in 'series' with the vegetable crops.

Are you able to post a diagram detailing what you have described above. What I got from the information is that the various facilities are situated along a section of the burn. So in turn waste from the combination of the different stages is what is causing the issues. I am I correct?

What are your goals for water filtration? Ie drinkable or just fish habitiable

What type of in flow is the plant dealing with?

What kind of area do you have to install a system?

What is the height differences from the river to the plant?

Is their also a polutant issue to deal with in winter?

I have had a lot of training in effluent control (ie sewer waste water managment) and if this scale is as large as i think it is. You may also want to look at ways that sewer plants deal with effluent. The process can be related in alot of ways for example continues flow grow beds work very similar to the large round trickle filters you see at a wwtp (waste water treatment plant). And also DWC (deep water culture) with aretors in some ways acts as a bardenpho process. If you are looking at a large scale operation then i would have a look into some of these process and then look around the site. You will see a lot of AP stuff is basically mini sewer plants for fishy poo.

Hope that gets you started. Feel free to ask away as there is a tonne of info in this form and even more in all our heads.

hi there tim c and jtjf_1, firstly thanks for your interest, i just wanted to post back a quick one to say i got your reply, and tonight i will work on giving you a much more detailed systems plan with all the required paramters, but this will take me a few hours, so i will post that tomorrow morning.
once again, thanks for all your inputs.

charlie

Charlie... my understanding is Scotland has a temperate climate with high annual rainfall. I'm going to state the obvious. Year round outdoor crops will not suffice unless it is something indigenous or acclimated to your soil and seasons. There are fish farms here in California that grow various soil based crops (Strawberries and Alfalfa) as they divert plant emulsion into adjacent fileds to be leeched back into the soil, however they must remove a percentage of solid waste prior to doing so due to government restrictions. So they are doing this as a partial solution. We live in a Mediterrainian climate that is extremely fertile so they are attracted to grow cash crops with the emulsion.

A greenhouse will give you year round crops, climate control, and the ability to manage your water quality entirely before returning it to the system or sending it downstream. Of course that is a larger expense. Soil based crop would be cheaper, but it's not going to be recoverable and your government may still require a percentage of solid waste removal, at least until they are satisfied the water quality is sufficient to allow 100% solids discharge.

Hi Charlie

Sounds like an interesting situation.

If you can create a 'closed' system (no discharge to the burn, water lose through transpiration, evaporation, exports in products), then you can minimise water extraction from the burn, leaving it's waters unchanged, but slightly diminished. One happy SEPA?

I think this would be the best outcome.

From the peak-oil angle, you have not stated what the feed sources for the fish are currently. How much fossil fuel energy is used to produce your current feed stocks? Have you looked at Howard T Odum's Emergy (Embodied Energy) concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_T._Odum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergy

There is always the capital/expense trade-off game. Spending capital now to minimize future expenses vs minimizing capital spending now and covering future expenses as they arise.

So, if you can invest capital in a system (greenhouses or other things) and the land it cover, you could minimize future expenses. Land area is important, as you're trying to build a solar collector that produces fish food and/or crops that can be sold to buy fish food. The less off-site fish food (high emergy, fossil fuel based), the less susceptible to raising energy prices you become. Indeed, if oil prices become very volatile, it may increase profits, as fish sales/fish meat revenues raise faster than total feed stock costs.

The way I look at it, you should be trying to position each production unit so that it's at or near the bottom end of the bell curve of producers in terms of total production cost. Stating the bleeding obvious I know, but always pays to write down your goals, for emphasis!

Scotland is indeed lust temperate country. Spent time there in 99.

My backgound is in near semi-arid wheat belt country. Land where water is the issue, but you have land area and sunshine to burn. (Bad cow pun! see Cow with Guns! : the site : the words, Go on punk, click the links, make me day!) So feel free to ignore me as some fool from far away

Gnoll110

Do you have your own website, or some photos? (we all love photos here)

hi there,

firstly i think that i need to clarrify something, i agree with you all closing the loop is ideal, but for this particular application i dont thinks its appropriate, as fresh water is needed continuously for the hatchery and smolt units.
So the main requirement for aquaponics in this context, is to provide an additional water treatment step, seasonally, whilst providing an additional crop.

Greenhouses / poly tunnels will be a must given our temperate climate.

i have drawn up a diagram and a graph showing the issues faced to try and give you a clearer idea of what is going on, but still trying to attach, it will follow shortly

Charlie ..

NRI (Natural Resources Institute - Univeristy of Greenwich) (Chatham Kent).. may have some expertise regards aquaculture (tilapia) in developing countries.

Regards Aquaponic systems .. perhaps not ...

But at least they can perhaps point you in the right direction.

I feel that if a real "understanding" can be gained regards the following:-

Systems.. optimal conditions for fish in "confined volume enironments", Simple low tech solutions for "flood and drain" systems

Balance .. educating villagers so that systems are not stressed.

(It is so very easy to over stock .....)

Then these ideas could perhaps lead to a winner.

My home (wheelie bin) systems are over stressed... but , I do see opportunity for optimizing a wheeliebin system to establish a small scale protein stream in for poor families in certain African countries..

Again I see it as investigating optimal perameters for a wheelie bin system, then translating the findings to fix the no of bin required per household to provide adequate weekly protein in the diet, then being able to provide a simple management manual and training.

(Would be a great Bachelors or masters thesis for someone maybe? - quite tight parameters?)

Charlie, i think i see where you're coming from. Baby steps. I'm sure that if your idea of effluent treatment works wonders then you'll look further into it.

If you are having trouble attaching your document just email it to me, i'll PM you my email addy.

Do you have current effluent PPM in NO3 and a target PPM? (lower the better, huh? )

I think we could give it a fair go if you gave us an average stocking density in kgs / 1000lt.

Looking forward to seeing more info.

Steve

Hi there steve
yes cant attach it, tried btmp and word.
anyway, i will look at getting a more complete data set to you asap.
as you will see from the graph, the stocking density of the two facilities needing remediation (is variable and increasing, based on eggs hatching and fry and smolts growing). but i will look into the seasonal increases in outputs and let you know. the graph should make things clearer

cheers for now
charlie

Hi Charlie

I assume we are talking Rainbow and/or Brown Trout here. Is this correct?

What is the issue that leads to the need for 'fresh water'. Do spawning Trout release hormones or something into the water that's not easly remove or what?

Went to a Trout Hatchery as a kid, otherwise the only dealings I've had with Trout involve a knife & fork. Murray Cod rule!


Gnoll110