Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Folks,

Just wanted to take the time to introduce myself!

I'm a 22 year old student of sustainable business at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. In the course of my study about sustainable development, I encountered aquaponics and since then I've been hooked on the idea. I've been lurking and reading for some time, and decided that it was finally time to get in the mix and start posting.

My dream is to create a sustainable urban farm in inner-city Chicago. It's the city where I grew up, where my parents live, and where I will be returning in 6 months. My ultimate goal is to create a productive urban farm that incorporates small scale aquaculture and hydroponics.

My goal is to be able to harvest around 500 lbs of high quality fish a year. Because of space restrictions and price consdierations, I have decided to opt the vertical hydroponic system sold by Vertigro.Vertigro This system should suit my needs perfectly and is very affordable at around $4000 for a 2000 plant system.

My first question would be: Is this system compatible with aquaponics?

I realize that because this will most likely be a non recirculating system, it would be hard to take advantage of aquaponics. However, I would be curious to know whether I could use the recycled water from the aquaculture system in order to amend my nutrient solution.

My second question would be: How much would you estimate a nearly fully automated recirculating system that would be capable of raising 500 lbs of fish a year? I would be willing to do much of the labor myself to assemble the system.

My third question is: Is it possible to raise Barramundi indoors? If so, is it possible to get Barramundi fingerings in the United States?

These are basic questions, but I would love to hear some seasoned and reasoned advice.

I'd like to pursue this venture with seriousness, so any information you could give me would be great,

Thanks a lot,
Josh Schiff

Hi Josh and welcome to the forum


Just about anything is adaptable to AP, just needs the right thought processes to nut it out...there are some APers who have done variations on the vertigro using towers and such for strawberry growing.


Aquaponics is about using the aquaculture water to supply nutrients to the plants

Define - nearly fully automated
here is a link to DanD who is working on something similar (1 fish/day - fish weight=1lb then it is ~365lb/yr
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/vie ... 531#109531


Most of those that are growing barra have them indoors (or under cover) in 500gal tanks or greater - not sure if they are available in USA tho

Will this be hydroponic or will you be using soil?

You can drip to waste using fish water added to hydroponic solution. If you are not using potting soil. You may need to have the nutrient strength adjusted. To much nitrogen is not always good for healthy and productive plants. What you are wanting to do is very much possible. Though a few leaf tissue analysis may be need to figure out how much nitrogen you will need in you hydro nutes.

A few considerations.
Without recirculation you may need to add other nutrients. If you are growing 500 pounds of fish per year the average suggested water volume might be 2000 gallons. You mentioned sustainable. Is replacing that much water on an on going basis sustainable? A dosing system is needed to mix your hydro nutrients with your fish water or foliage feeding the additional nutrients if you optimal plant growth and fruiting. I would suggest its cheaper/simpler to re capture the water and be fully aquaponic vs having to meter your nutrients. They did mention recirculating systems on their website.

If you use only fish water in a drip to waste it will be interesting to see how you meter out water exchange to keep plant feeding at the needed nitrate levels and yet keep it from being to high.

As far as estimating a nearly fully automated recirculating system that would be capable of raising 500 lbs of fish a year. The question might be better asked this way. How much nitrogen are 500 pounds of fish going to produce? Are the fish going to be continuous production or batch? If batch then you nitrate levels are going to start low and climb as your fish get bigger and you feed them more. Your plants will grow also, but at some point extra nitrogen may need to be added from other sources. Plants need the most nitrogen when leafing/growing, early on. If continuous production then you would have a pretty even nitrate output all season and it would be easier to estimate how many plants you could feed with your fish or how much less nitrogen you need in your hydroponic nutrient.

All that said, if you just want to amend your nutrient solution with some extra nitrogen from the fish water, go for it and see what happens.

Hi and welcome Lofty,
I'm still kinda new myself as I don't have any fish yet.

I had been into hydroponics but since I got sucked into AP, I've nearly abandoned thoughts of Hydroponics. The AP seems so much more sustainable to me since I'm not dumping old nutrient and replacing all the time or "gia forbid" running nutrient to waste (in the sandy soil here it would wind up back in the drinking supplies eventually.) Anyway, I'm kinda confused that you aren't talking about going full force AP, I bet you can figure out a way to make those tower systems into your Grow Beds for a recirculating AP system. Save the money from buying nutrient chemicals or just have a small area that is actually Hydroponic for say testing out new plants or other things.

So is this going to be a heated greenhouse on a rooftop or something? I can't see lighting as being very sustainable.

I don't know what the US equivalent of Barra might be though I'm sure that some sort of bass bluegill or perch might be fine and not require as much extra heating. Then there are trout which I know little about. Of course for easier feeding Tilapia might be good though they like warmer water and may be more difficult to get your hands on.

Sounds cheap.... how did you arrive at the figures???

Is that figure based on "x" number of plants per pot @ $xx per pot?

What about plumbing, pumps, grow media, nutrient etc ?

If you need to you can use a 50 gallon drum of biobale to process most of your ammonia with bacteria. That would make up for the lack of grow bed volume in those 'pots'.

Forgot to add Lofty.... if you were to go down the AP path fully... or even a re-circilulating system...

Then I think you'd probably need to consider alternate media other than coco-coir.... in a constant "flood and drain" aquaponics setup (even with a 20% coco fibre:perlite mix) I think the fibre would remain too wet for some plants.... especially strawberries.

Their manuals talk about drip feeding two - three times daily...

If you were to retain the use of timers and maintain that watering rate then I don't think that you would acheive anywhere near the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate conversion necessary to support the quantity of fish that you propose.... or anywhere even close to it.

Conversely... the pots are a drip feed, drip drain style of system from what I can see.....

I'm wondering if this style would acheive the sort of oxygenation that we typically strive for in an aquaponic system.

Another concern would be with such a slow drip drain.... the amount of water "held" within the system (pots) would be considerable and very slow to return to the fish tank.... you'd probably need an mammoth sump tank reserve to make it workable.....

Thoughts above are formulated without having seen the pots in operation, particularly the drain aspect

G'day lofty.

Why not pause at the design stage for a while and add the requirements for "AP-ready" so when you decide that you're going to ditch the hydro for AP (spend enough time here and you will ) it will be a seamless transition.

It looks like the vertigro system is drip fed with a bottom return?

Solids from the AP may be a problem with this. you have two options

1: filter AP water through mechanical filters and dispose of the solids daily

2: incorporate a large enough gravel bed that the solids can be traps and slowly mineralised.

with option one you will have trouble with anything other than leafy greens

option two may be as simple IMO as using HDPE 44 gallon drums filled with gravel between your pump and the drippers. The beauty of this is you can add additional drums to the system if you find that their volume is not sufficient for solids entrapment and mineralisation.

i'm not sure if a series or parallel setup of these would be better, but i would probably lean towards series.............

This is obviously for an AP only system. I think you may have trouble supplementing hydro with the AP as the nutrients are quite high in EC compared to AP so you may find that using the AP water will be diluting your EC well out of the accepted hydro range, also AP water in generally PH 7 to 7.5 where as HYdro water can be what 5.5 to 6.5? you may have problems with mineral fertilizers becoming bio-available if your hydro system ph rises.

I guess what i'm saying is this, if you're interested in AP then get your verigro system, make some mods and give it a go. if it isn't to your liking then convert over to full hydro, all you will have lost is a few 44g drums (which you can re-use for hydro nute mixup and storage) and some gravel.........

Seriously though i think that trying to marry a highly variable natural system and a tightly controlled inorganic (mineral) system may be asking for trouble as NEITHER will perform too well.

Steve

PS We'd love for you to keep us informed of your progress with posts and pictures

That link didn't work right for me El. Try this one for the Fish-a-Day calculations

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... php?t=2860

this is one of the biggest indoor barra fish farm operating in the US.
I don't know if it close to you or not but you can probably source fingerlings from them.
http://www.australis.us/
And 500lbs a year on a commercial basis is easy, but it would be a bit short to create a market for them, add a zero and then it makes it interesting and highly productive plant and fish wise, and keeps you occupied.
I've seen trout farms with two guys operating a 150 ton facitlity without any trouble as long as it is automated.

Have you seen this, it is quite close to your ideas.
http://www.verticalfarm.com/

Another thing is to create a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) project, makes sure that the risks are paid for by the clients of the produces you'll be selling. I'm trying to get one started here and the idea works wonders and keeps you off losing all your money at the start.

The vertigro or a homebrew version of it can be made true flood and drain.
You`d need to feed each pot seperately, cascade would put all the solids in the top pot. The gravel in each pot would support the next pot up

Common drain (and alignment) for the stack with the central biggish diameter tube, overflow hole in the central tube aligned near the top of each pot section and a couple of 6mm drain holes aligned to the bottom of the pots. ..stick the pump on a timer, jd

Wonder why
...would help if I didn't do a self portrait - thanks Janet, that was the one I had lined up to link too

Thanks for all the informative and intelligent answers,
It will take me some time to craft a cogent response but when I do I promise it will be more detailed and with all the things previously mentioned taken into consideration!