I have been an armchair enthusiast for aquaponics
(only one
, I promise) for several years, losing sleep for several months after bumping into Joels web page while at the PRI web site. I keep intending to make an AP system here in Belize, but never get around to it. Various constraints have conspired against me, notably previous financial obligations and limited resources, fear of this whole large world of nitrites and ammonia, fish and pea gravel, a now ex-wife who was anti-AP (the marriage was obviously doomed), the inertia born of a fairly full life, and general intimidation to tackle something that appears to be like learning another language.
Some of those barriers have since disappeared, notably my ex-wife, "The Committee of Dawn", who could see the beauty of Joels AP system, but did not see a need for us to replicate a version of it here. Her point was that we have good soil on much of the farm, a dry season garden of rich alluvial soil 3 meters deep, and we don't need more veggies (we produce a lot of extra food which we donate to an elderly feeding program) and the initial expense of such a system renders AP beyond the reach of most farmers with limited access to capital or traditional avenues of credit. which conspired to sap any potential development of an AP system.
The last two years have been very trying for me as my marriage dissolved. I was saddled with the management of our NGO (
www.mmrfbz.org), and I have taken on a schedule of teaching.
We had our fourth annual Permaculture design course in March. It was the first one I managed without Dawn, and the first course where I taught 12 of the 72 hours, with Maria Ros, Albert Bates and Andrew Goodheart Brown. As usual, one of the evening sessions, I showed the aquaponics video which Joel gave to me (I think 300 people have watched that over the years), and it was a huge hit, of course. The discussion was long, enthusiastic, and one of the students walked away with the same sleep deprivation/internal dialog obsession thing I had a few years back. Michael Buick (he wrote about his experience at Maya Mountain Research Farm here eyeslikesaucers.blogspot.com) decided he would help me build an AP system. So the last few months we have collected sapodilla posts from the bush, dug out a level spot in shale on a patch of old cattle pasture that will not grow anything, and collected sand for the piers out of the river.
So, I am back in The Book, daily, watching the DVD, over and over, and preparing to build the first AP system in Belize (I think), and am generally excited.
The building will be 7x7 meters, under a clear roof, built into the hill, on top of shale (obviating the need for a lot of cement). The pump will be solar powered, and I am looking into a solar powered continuous flow system.
I am not sure what we will do for a tank, or for grow beds, but I am sure we will do something. I will be haunting the boards, looking at what you have done,asking for lots of advice from the many collective years of experience here on this board, and look forward to seeing where this goes. I am very excited!
I do not have a functioning camera right now, but will soon, and can borrow pictures from the students we have, so I will post photos as this develops.
If anyone has any advice, I am VERY open to hearing it!
Thank you!
Backyard Aquaponics
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