Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,
My six small systems are at Reading uni, UK, comparing Aquaponics (8 goldfish), Aquaponics (8 goldfish) + Iron chelate and full hydroponic nutrients.

These pictures were taken last week (16th) and I am harvesting the first batch tomorrow (23rd) and starting a new batch.

The aquaponics systems are well behind the hydroponic nutrient treatments in terms of growth, but I have found out this is due to the fish being fed very little in my abscence. NO3 was down to 10ppm in the aquaponics systems but still running over 100ppm in the hydroponics.

As expected, this first crop has been more of a trial of the set-up and we have spent a while ironing out water loss issues etc. The glasshouse techs have instructions to feed much more heavily during the next 3-week trial and we'll see if we get a fairer fight!

Any comments, suggestions welcomed as ever,
Neal

Was wondering how you were going neal.

Due to Aquaponics not being FULLY functional till 6 months, any experiments beforehand will not give true growth comparisons.

At 6 months your hydro will be left in the dust.

100 ppm sounds low even, I guess it is only lettuce.

Yeah, the timeframes I have are rather limiting but they'll be plenty to discuss in my dissertation! I hope to get at least 2 more harvests in before the days get too short.
I don't know of anyone doing aquaponics in the Uk yet on a large scale, so I'm hoping to use this project as a way of raising awareness in this country and hopefully get some funding for further research. The experiment is certainly attracting of attention at uni so hopefully word will start to get out.

Go Aquaponics Go!

We should start a wagering thread.

Good to hear from you neal! Was wonering hopw the experiment was going. You made me VERY happy when you "qualified" the hydro is doing better statement with the lack of fish feeding. Too many experiments in the past have just looked at end results with no analyisis and said "hydro is better".

Keep up the good work..........and the feeding

Good that your sparking interest Neal. For me even if hydro showed better growth against a mature aqua system it would be a mute point.
Fish and veggies or just veggies. Seems to be an easy choice.
Hope you get funding to enlarge and or continue your experiments. Looking forward to reading your comparissons as well. Will you be including costs incured in each system set up?

Hi Neal, looking at your pics again I thought it would be better for the aquaponic side to have a deeper grow bed allowing for more area for the bacteria. If you are able to conduct another side by side experiment in the future I would suggest a grow bed type arangement for the aquaponic portion. That should easily give it a fighting chance.

Second lettuce trial, 1 week's growth - Aqua (top pic) vs. Hydro (bottom pic)
Feeding greatly increased in Aquaponics tanks, NO3 up to 40 ppm. Systems have now been running for 2 months.
Cheers for now,
Neal

Go! Go! Go!

I don't see as big of a difference this time around. What gravel volume do you have relative to the water volume?

Hmmm...

Dave,
The gutters are 1.5m long and about 10cm wide. Filled to a depth of about 6-7cm with expanded clay balls, about 70l water with 8 goldfish in each tank. The aquaponics in the pic also has Iron added to approx 2ppm.

Johnnie, is that a confused "hmmm"????

Looking good neal, and making such shallow beds work in continuous flow, nice. It's a fairly new method, only seen it once before done by a scientist.

He also managed zero waste, by cropping a thirteen bed system, one at a time, thirteen stages of growth, maybe next experiment you can wow them with aqua and all kinds of added benefits.

Excellent work!

What size are the fish, 8 of my goldfish = 4 kilos feeding a few lettuce. Be a bit radical...

THanks for the update...
glad to see the improvement in the aqua setup there...

Great to see that there is little difference in growth rate Neal, and after such a short time too....

I'd be surprised if a properly managed hydroponic system didn't demonstrate faster growth rates than Aquaponics simply for the fact that you can feed the plants precisely what they need.

While the purpose of Neale's study might be to compare plant growth rates, such comparison is for practical purposes (as distinct from a laboratory study) is only part of the picture.

The cost of nutrients and spent nutrient disposal would, in my mind, swing the pendulum back in favour of aquaponics........and that's without the fish.