Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am not going to pretend to know even 1/100th of what you do Rup so i wont argue with you. However, i think that is room to look at these things from a different angle. I think there is room for a much greater integration.

Oh for sure... it is integration... integrated aquaculture...

Extract from wikipedia

Hydroponics
By 1842, a list of nine elements believed to be essential to plant growth had been compiled, and the discoveries of the German botanists Julius von Sachs and Wilhelm Knop, in the years 1859-65, resulted in a development of the technique of soilless cultivation.

Aquaponics
The development of modern aquaponics is often attributed to the various works of the New Alchemy Institute and the works of Dr. Mark McMurtry et al. at the North Carolina State University. Inspired by the successes of the New Alchemy Institute, and the reciprocating aquaponics techniques developed by Dr. Mark McMurtry et al., other institutes soon followed suit. Starting in 1997,......


So if i understand this correctly, modern hydroponics has been studied and developed for more than 150 years, whilst modern aquaponics has about 15 years behind the belt. It will be interesting to see what the future brings!

Gabe

I think I won't ever trust these kinds of biased articles, because of course the author is invested in their technology and methods. (I like the point about agreeing with the arguments but not the conclusions) Why would I take the word of a hydroponics guy for whether AP works or not?

Never say never….

It's in our nature to screw up almost everything we touch, so I'm pretty confident that mass scale food production as it happens now has seen its longest time. Hydroponics will follow soon enough for the same reason. People will be more or less forced to produce at least the amount of food themselves and BYAP systems are a very good way to do that.

If and when that happens, there will be not enough competition left to provide the counterforce to stop AP from becoming commercially viable. The right kind of people will jump into the opportunity and make it eventually happen. These kind of movements happened before and will happen again. As long as there is no fundamental change in the human character there is no reason to believe things will be different this time.

Believing that some monster IBC with a heap of grow beds and DWC basins, a bunch of filters and a lot of BS will do the trick is for the "easy go lucky" fools that deserve to loose all they have. The stampede of Moroccan flies that call themselves consultant, advisor or teacher follow the smell of the rotting corpses of these fools.

In general I appreciate the "down to earth" approaches of EB, Rupert, Ryan and a few others here. A BYAP system cannot be compared with a commercial system. They're simply two different animals. Although a commercial approach can work in the backyard for a hobby system (will be a lot of work though) the other way around I believe will not work commercially.

Despite the article, Ryan for one proves that it is possible to go commercial in AP. so there is hope for all who are willing to put in at least the same amount of effort that guy did. I endorse the idea that for a bigger setup one indeed needs more than 1 loop….and a loop hole won't work

Are there any papers, videos, or explanations on this forum that you could lead me to that explain removing/mineralizing/supplementing collected fish waste? And once this solution is looped through the targeted plants, is it returned to the same FT that he waste originated from? I've been looking for papers on this since someone in this forum said that Ryan is doing this but cannot seem to find anything! Thanks!

There are many systems that are removing, mineralising and then returning the nutrient solution back into the system. Any system that is not doing this is removing valuable and required nutrients.

so what are some common ways to liquify the solids to extract the nutrient content, but prevent solids from clogging the biofiltration? I would like to collect the solids from a swirl filter, and maybe steep them in a certain size micron filter in an aerated solution, then run that through a nitrification filter???

We ran a very simplified version on our trial system.. viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5209

I just read in a different thread that you remove the solids, run them in an aerated solution, wait for them to settle, then pump out the nutrient rich water. Mind sharing how you settle the solids then pump out clean water without disturbing the solids? Thank you.