Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi

I live on a hydroponics vegetable farm that uses vertical stackers. Our main plants are strawberries which requires us to trim back our plants a lot to prevent overcrowding... This brings up a couple questions that I would love to be pointed in the right direction to figure out.

Is their a vegetarian species of fish that I could simply feed the trimmings to? I am talking about just green strawberry leaves. (obviously this would not be their full diet) WIll it have any nutritional value or just pollute the tank?

What about rotten berries, peppers, or tomatoes? Im not talking putrid rotten, but to the point where it is unsellable.

There are some fish that do eat veggies but I'm not sure if strawberry plants are all that tasty to fish, I've never tried feeding any to fish.

But there are some creatures that love eating such things, like worms, or BSF larva or chickens and ducks.

And worm castings would probably be very handy for the farm.

Thanks for your response.

And Yes! We feed them to the chickens, goats, and a compost pile. Would it be possible to feed the plants to the worms, then the worms to the fish? And if so, is that not still feeding it the same nutrients? Like if all we fed were strawberry plants to worms.

The farm I live on is actually quite big. I will be posting pictures soon when I get a hang of the forum. I grew up raising fish, then had the luxury of moving onto a hydro farm. I have learned so much and now am interested in aquaponics and aeroponics.

The worms dont actually eat the food. They feed off the microbs/bacteria that happen when the plants break down.

So the worms convert the otherwise "useless" plant matter into nutrition for the fish by eating the resulting microbes and bacteria? Without this process the plants have no nutritional value?

not really useless... but they assist in breaking down the solids which will help keep your growbeds from having to many solids
the worms just break stuff down even smaller than it is.

Whao....!!!! what a great way to communicate our thoughts or dreams with others i love to read it and also watch it.