Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

For you OZ pros

I just did some quick costings on just the fish side of things. Working with the 1.6-1 feed to kg ratio. The best feed price I can get is $5.00 per kg so 1 kg of fish cost $8.00. That doesnt even take into account any other costs. Since thats about what say silver perch sell for ie between 8 - 12 bucks how dooes any one make a profit?
I can get feed in Indo for about 80c per kg. Would there be a business is bringing it in?

Ah, but dont forget all the free veggies (and friut) as well

OK fair comment - using the deep water culture figures for a 5000lt tank I could count on about 250 tomato plants (5 Plants per 100ltr). I am not sure how many kg of tomatos you would get per plant. I have heard that you can get up to 15kg for some varietys but I was working on 8kg per plant per year. I am not sure if these figures ar correct especially the Kg per year. Can someone advise or has any one got any costings?

I think Ridley's 25kg bag of pellets are less than $50 ($2/kg retail), this supplemented with duckweed, worms, fly larvae and all the other incidental food items for variation of diet keeps the cost/kg of fish reasonable - as to importing fish food, I don't think this would be viable (nice thought tho).

Ell

yeah, I only paid $2/kg for my barra food

I bought some silver perch specific food the other week for $27.50 per 20kg bag making it just under $1.40 per kilo from my local feed supplier in Gidgegannup wa.

Nice!

cropping

Tomatoes = 50-60 kilos per square metre per annum. This is trained toms utilising vertical growth.

Red peppers 25 kilos psm per annum.
Green peppers 30 kilos psm per annum.

Hope that helps. These figures are if you are good at it. you could get a lot less.

Indo fish meal could be from dodgy sources. Like some people I wont name who blow up and cyanide reefs to get fish for the Aquarium industry, other races strip fish everything and process it for peanuts.

Some industry should just DIE!

worms and duckweed are free

Hi Matt

Your initial sums are the fish equivalent of basic feedlot cattle.

This is a high volume turnover game. It's a good thing to think and pull apart other people operations to gain understanding

Nearly all the costs are in operating costs, with minimal capital cost (particularly land).

Risk is that feed costs raise and eliminate any profits. I've heard some funny stories about this little game

A number of commercial feedlots reduce their risks by increasing the capital costs and producing at least some of their own feeds.

Now we have a game we all play, all the time, balancing resource allocations. What are the capital, time & risk trade-offs.

Modern farming is basically a solar energy capture game that has been distorted be cheap fossil fuels.

Is there some special feature of your set-up or site or skills or genetics or something that make you a low cost producer for the quality of product(s) you're producing? Multiple products is a good example of a special feature.

Getting to the lower end of the bell curve is generally worth it. It mean you will probable still be viable in most cyclical market downturns. As that mean, even when your not viable (for short periods), you have the fat to surive. Fundamental change required full reviews of your game plan. Are you still a low cost producer for your quality of product(s) on the new games board?

What do you do with your tomato plants after you have picked them clean? How do you plan on selling the fish: whole, gutted or fillet?

I am thinking about producing my own fish food, or at least part of it.

ingredients:
-all the leftovers from the plants after harvesting: stems, leaves, fruits that didn't turn out too good.
-fish guts, fish heads and skin if you fillet your harvested fish, young female tilapias (I'm sure it will be extra tasty with young virgins besides you only want the males to grow to full size as they get bigger)
-duckweed

Mix everything well in a food processor. Pour the mixture as a thin layer onto an oven tray and bake at medium heat for 45 minutes. After cooling crush into bite sized pieces and serve to your in-laws, eh I mean fish

I can already smell the delicious flavor (and hear the misses complain )

The cooking could be done in a solar oven!

Stay tuned for more delicious recipes!

ahhh impetuous youth! :0

By the way This is a very old thread and most of the questions have been answered elsewhere. I still be lieve that aquaponics is a sustainable project. It just depends what you raise and the cost of the raw materials and setup costs.