Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have a continuous supply of spring water and live off grid. I am wondering whether water has to be recycled through the system?

Thinking I'd like to simply gravity feed the plants from the fish tank then run water outdoors. Is this feasible?

Brian

Welcome to BYAP Brian
If the spring water is well oxygenated the fish would be ok, but if you have a substantial continuous flow of water, all your nutrients will be gone before the plants can make use of them. If the water quality is ok, then it would be fine to use it as top up water.
I'm off-grid too (since 1991), and running the AP system is no problem with (currently) 4.19kW of PV, and I don't use a generator at all.

Brian, good evening/morning!
My first effort at this stuff was a flow-through type system where every other day I'd top off 5 gallons of water at the top of a tower of buckets. Water would sit at the highest level, off-gassing for 2 days, then that water would flow through 2 small fish tanks, draining into a sump which would overflow through soaker hose right into a soil garden bed. It was a minimally sized set-up, but the bed that regularly received fish tank water outproduced the one right next to it. All the leafy green veggies thrived like I hadn't seen before.