Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The systems using animal/humanure are not AP systems in the backyard scense they are integrated agr/aqua culture systems and they are perfectly safe if designed & operated properly.
It's not a loo directly on the top of a fishtank

cheers

I knew someone was going to find some pig/aq references.

What we are seeing on this thread is a prime example of how some peoples approach to their research is flawed.

So much of what has been mentioned on this thread is so context dependent.

Someone sees a animal/fish/plant extensive polyculture system and thinks they can just add manure to an AP system and expect everything to be fine.

Someone reads that it is possible to raise fish in densities greater than 40, 50, 60, 70kg/m3 and thinks it is just a matter of adding so many fish to their tank.

Conversely people know about the risk of pathogens from warm blooded animals and think that you shouldn't add manure to a recirculating system.

Now if you don' know what you doing and your system is not designed to cope with any of the above or any other methods, components, practices. etc. then you shouldn't do any of the above. If you do there is no reason why you cant make it work but that is no reason why you should.

For BYAP, commercial and sustainable projects it is not about what is possible but rather what works best for a given market, in a given location, for a particular team of operators.

This is particularly the case for feeding. There are all sorts of strategies that can be employed for supplementing your fishes food and they may be entirely appropriate in Africa, India or Bullwinkle's backyard but in other contexts are a bad idea. In America or Australia feeding manure into any fish system is almost always going to be a bad idea because your market won't except it. Whereas in Asia its not a problem even if you are exporting to America or Australia

The opening post was how to feed your fish for zero costs.
Its going to be difficult on a small scale but he did say he lived in a rural area in Cyprus??
If he had the land and did the research he could probably do it,useing the info I posted it wouldnt be aquaponics though it would be aquaculture.


My major hesitation in setting up my system is for a few reasons
My motivations are to make myself more resilient in the coming future economic contractions,which I think are inevitable.
Resource depletion, global warming,overpopulation,end of cheap oil,ageing populations,the mathematical idiocy of reliance on debt driven perpetual growth and general economic collapse/downturn that will bring.
Then add my ageing and inability to create wealth and a reduced returns on my super due to the general economic climate.

So I want to invest in systems that are sustainable that will reduce my operating costs.
Growing food is a priority.
Permaculture makes sense as its closed loop.

AP relies on power supply which currently is reliable and probably will still be in my lifetime.
The availability of food.....fish food needs cheap oil to catch fish, process fish and distribute the food ,this concerns me.
The availability of fingerlings....cheap oil when it runs out is going to make fish farming a pretty tough business to make money from, as input costs rise and your customers get poorer.

Most of these problems are solved with tilapia,but that doesnt help me in Australia.

It all boils down to how can you get the most meat and veg for the least effort and money.
My constraints are poor soils and lack of water.
So maybe a small scale solar pumped sleepy cod tank fed by moringa,worms, bugs ,maggots and BSF that grew some water hungry kang kong, water cress and lettuces with low expectations of regular meat but plenty of greens would be the way to go.
Use the money saved on veg to buy bait to catch fish from the ocean and buy another water tank and build a few more wicking beds and a quail cage.

Still wondering about snails as an additive, but the thread seems to have turned into pig shit.

What's the purpose of the snails?

Feeding to fish and or yabbies. I think that insects do a better conversion on protein (an assumption) but I can get a lot of snails.

Fish do better protein conversion... from commercial pellets...

They were developed that way after decades of research... and that's why commercial fish growers use them... fastest growth.. for the least cost...

I am cheap Rupe, and I think the originator of this thread wanted to reduce the costs of feeding in a smallish system(or some other ? reason).
We kill snails as a pest because of the vegies; I am only looking at their potential for reducing bought feed and as a positive to the system, they are lacking in vit C but have a few good other points.

Is rat lungworm disease transferable to fish ?



http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/f ... e-garden-/

There's probably heaps of bugs fish would take, my worm farm tends to get caterpillars and other things other than worms in it, especially when I dump a lot of fruit skins in it.

I fed snails to my aquarium yabbies for years, they love them.

My tilapia eat slugs all the time. (well... before I put copper tape around my grow beds)

Copper tape? Around the grow beds? Why would you use copper in your AP beds?

Slugs or did you mean snails?

I have tried feeding a few snails to my Snakeheads... they love it! I hope my snail colony grow up faster (separate growbeds for them) so that I could have many sumptuous diet to those Snakehead fish.

Google "snakehead fish" to know what they are... Or, here is the link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakehead_(fish)

Slugs and snails can't cross copper. It reacts with their slime in an uncomfortable way.

Aha... but don't copper impact the system? I thought they are toxic to fish even though they were only in trace amounts.