Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Not one without the other gotta have both! besides Like Spirit Rancho said "you can water the permiculture plants with fish water"!
And that will also allow you to up your fish to plant ratio if you had the water, and the excess plants could be fodder for the fish!

I think that would depend on your climate and whether you'd have long-lasting pools of water or have such a water-hungry soil that it would take a long time to rehydrate back to that point.

Also you'd need much lower stocking densities.

1)Yes, more water ,and 2) no, if you are using your nutrient water on other plants and diluting out the nutrient water with new water you can increase the fish load. 3) soil type and garden size, relative.

Where is the new water coming from?

What ever your water source is to begin with.

Ah. In the situation I'm imagining, the water has no external input. The pond/lake will sit there, being recirculated to plants and back, a la aquaponics.

The only top-ups in this situation come from rain, which obviously won't be continuous.

Agreed, certainly wouldn't be an option in an arid area. In my area buckets, wheelbarrows and such have to be turned upside down or will become mosquito farms. My biggest problem last year with plant growth was rains overflowing my system and losing all the nutes. I hope to work on my systems this weekend. At least get my old barrel ponics sytem going again.

Yes. Is a kind of AP hybrid. Real interesting.

Never heard of them either... but gets you thinking.

Trail a kind of "stream" to wend through the food forest - dropping from contour to contour - sort of separating them into islands - and increase ground soak and humidity instead of regular irrigation...... this just sent from the top and soaks into the sides as it travels down... maybe getting narrower and narrower or something. Clay based furrow or something..... with rocks along the sides and in the middle to slow the travel of the water..... sounds just like nature!... so must be something right about it! Maybe end in a kind of marsh for water hungry plants. Turn on the tap up top as needed. Will then have your swales and the reflection of water increasing light..... happy water cos a kind of flow form.... and marsh plants for any excess... so more than one eco-system... nice bio-diversity for greater corporate beneficial results.

I am going to start with where I planted my Moringas... find plants that will grow at different levels around and about them.... with this water trail wending from side to side through it... if possible. It creates many bio-diverse "edges" that they speak of. What you think?

Have you been reading my mind Cyara

That's what stuck in my mind from Bill's videos. How water moves through the ground as onto the next catch basin(sort of like green's on natures golf course).

It would depend alot on the contour of the land, soil consistency, but Bill had an ideal little ravine picked out. Fish would be a struggle to manage in that environment I would think; weather and predator wise.

Yes. That struck me too. In the one Urban video he spoke of how each year the water table increased until it was easy to grow trees. In another I think he said that for every 3 inches of humus 1 inch of water was retained. Our tidy gardens of today are a joke! Lots of bare earth around neatly placed plants of the same mix.... with a nice big lawn in the middle. The forest is truly the most beautiful with everything giving to everything else.... and not just low maintenance... but no- maintenance.

Even a smallish slope could be used to benefit I think. Bit of work to lay natural looking channels through it though. I am already sometimes impatient at how much it takes to move forward a bit ... But worthwhile. It takes as long as it takes I guess. That is the one thing about Permaculture .. you talk in years and not days. Just digging those swales is something.

I would keep my fish up top and in an easily managed pond. I really have to watch for predatation here .... big time .... and have had enough of being the local monkey... or whatever... hotel. The cormorants cost me last season with fingerlings and I am ready for them now... no more fishing here! They leave too little behind of value!

I have watched most everything on youtube

The one thing that stick with me is using the catchments to put water into the ground and planting on the bank. Also, the idea of layering large canopy fruit trees, smaller trees, shrubs, herbs, veggies, and then vertical vines seems very logical and is the same things as intensive planting I have talked about doing in the growbeds. I've come full circle. Now its time to go build that composting toilet.

In one of the videos in Britain, there was an old man who gave pretty good guidelines for planting. I think he said a tree every 20 feet, a smaller or dwarf tree in between the big trees, a shrub cutting the space in half again, herbs in between those, root vegetables in between those, and climbers around the trees. Hmm, that's only 6, I'm missing 1.