Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,
I'm an American expat living in Taiwan. We have some empty land that used to be rice fields. They are level with short stone walls separating the fields. I'm looking for information that incorporates aquaponics with ponds and plants in the ground while incorporating permaculture design. I'd like to include an edible forest garden as well. Most information I've learned about swales is for sloped land it seems. Any problem using them on flat lands?
Can you point me towards some good references?
I'm reading Gaia's Garden and have ordered Ludwig's Graywater book.
TIA

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=235437896615994763#

That is a video about Sepp Holzer and his use of aquaculture. There are some things in the video that are a bit confusing such as how he pumps in water from multiple wells and then generates electricity using the water from his ponds... It sounds like a perpetual motion power generator of sorts but there must be something missing such as rain water flowing into his ponds... Otherwise this is one of my favorite videos =P

Goodluck taking what he did on a mountainside and applying it to your rice field! Keep us updated since it sounds like a very interesting endeavor. Oh yea... Geoff Lawton has a video on the use of swales too... I think you should be able to find that on the internet as well.

Mike

Swales are kind of redundant if you have stepped paddy fields. Always good to do some searching through permie forums, here's a classic example http://forums.permaculture.org.au/

Love that link Mike, I just quickly watched the first couple of minutes. Man all that water, that's just not fair. I'll bookmark that for later when I'm not at work.

That movie is fantastic. Now to pay back the boss.........