Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here's an idea. Please shoot me down in flames if you think that it is impractical. Since going pretty public (blog, forum and the press) with my AP builds, I have had numerous enquiries from African and other countries. As far as the African countries are concerned the funding is from the UN (World Bank) and the builds are in small communities that need to provide food in a more sustainable way than their current subsistence farming. In the case of Zimbabwe, as soon as the political situation stabilises (ie. Miugabe goes) there is massive rebuilding that will take place with UN, US and UK funding. AP fits the bill perfectly and all these countries already have a culture of farming Tilapia (Mossambicus and Niloticus) in ponds. I have had enquiries from Siierre Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe at government level.

Other enquiries have been from Trinidad and Tobago in the Carribean and Qatar in the Middle East.

Here's my idea. If I could put together the deals, would we be able to assemble a Task Team from forum members (Australia, US etc.)? Even if you could only spare say 2 or 3 weeks of leave, I could ensure that we were flown to these sites and paid well. We could pool our expertise in the design of low-tech systems (in the case of the African sites) and then go there to supervise the build and train the locals. I could source all the hardware we need here in South Africa and then send it in a container by ship, road or air and then we just unpack at the other side and start construction.

I really believe that there is massive potential for Aquaponics especially with rising international food prices, and there will be no shortage of deals flowing our way if we can put together a truly international and knowledgable team.

Please feel free to throw ANY ideas into the ring.

I might be willing. My line of work is from gig to gig anyway so pm me with more details if you have them yet. Oh... I would need to find some one to take care of my AP system while I was gone. This could be grounds for getting an automatic feeder I wanted!

synaptoman,
Do you know anything about the wind powered rope pumps I've heard were getting common in some very poor rural areas of the world?

I have a feeling these things might be very important to Aquaponics in some of these very small communities that may not have much in the way of electricity.

I've heard of them but never seen them in action. We do have a great pumping system in the rurals areas of South Africa where a kids merry-go-round is connected to a pump. check it out here;

http://www.playpumps.org

Aquaponic playground! I love it.


Here is about the best page I've found on the wind powered rope pumps.
http://home.planet.nl/~holts000/rp_wind.htm

Sounds like a great idea synaptoman!

I'm think ubiquitous food independence is becoming more and more important. The food price shocks we've seen in the past few months shows this clearly.

A lot of us have engineering backgrounds, and are able to design systems and such.

On a personal note, I'd love to collaborate with you guys, and my schedule is totally flexible.

This brings up an interesting question in my mind. In a 3rd world situation, how do you test water quality to determine if the system is cycled?

I realize you can put "waste fish" in, and if they all die so be it. I'm thinking along more humane methods though

The Tilapia that are currently being used are used to living in the most appaling conditions in cramped and oxygen depleted little earth dams so I'd say, from my experience, that they are pretty "bullet-proof" anyway. Our designs have just got to take into account the kind of conditions and prevailing mind-set. We've got to engineer in water quality safeguards.

oooh, so tempting

I've seen the Play Pump on PBS, a not-for-profit TV channel. The pump operates when moved in either direction, which is an usual feature. I'm not sure, does it operate like an Archamedes Screw or by compression? The designer didn't elaborate on this point.
I had thought about something like this pump to move water but using livestock (horse, donkey, ox) as the power source, like they do in most of the third world countries that don't have access to electricity. I, too, am looking at alternatives to getting off the grid.
Also, another thing that might be of interest to you, since you are looking at low tech solutions, I read about a South American UVI system where the farmer uses manual water paddles to splash oxygen into his growing ponds for aeration- again another area with little or no access to electricity.

Another thought.... If this is done on a governmental basis, are we looking at a repeatable system design? Or is this more of a use whatever is at hand kind of approach?

Awesome idea, although I can't really break away to travel to Africa at this stage in my life.

A comment about repeatable design vs. site/circumstance specific. I personally tend to favor site/circumstance specific design since it would be a shame to waste a slope in order to make a flat place to install the standard repeatable design.

Also, if many of these places already have ponds growing fish, all they really need are some sort of troughs of grow beds hooked up and some way to move the water. It would improve the water quality, grow veggies, and probably increase the ability to grow more fish if needed.

Having a standard design that one could show to government officials with the information about how much of said fish can be grown and how much produce with x amount of water and y amount of electricity for M amount of money would all be a good idea since they need some sort of presentation to share with others in order to get approval for site specific design in the first place.

when your talking about feeding poor people you need to be careful. if the village is depending on you for food and your AP setup fails, it's serious.
which brings me to an interesting question and something that might be worth a poll. how many here have had their AP setup fail? I know my 2 systems are successful, but it might be useful to examine our failures more closely.
having said that, i think your idea has great potential

I suppose the biggest challenge is rather than the AP system being ours, it would be very important to teach the locals enough about it to make it theirs.

That is the biggest problem I see with "systems" that have anything vaguely connected to nature involved that people "sell". Nature is not fool proof unless we remove all the fools so any system designed by us is definitely not going to be fool proof. Little Hydroponic gardens or aquaponic systems that are just bought off a shelf with a two page instruction sheet might be great for some one trying their hand who has done some research but the average person who gets one as a gift, may have no clue and little desire to do the research before filling it up and killing something then deciding it is all bunk.

The real important parts of Aquaponics has very little to do with the tanks, beds, and plumbing themselves. It is understanding enough about the natural systems being formed to help keep them in balance (or at least not mess it up too much.) Understanding the different types of filtration (bio and mechanical.) Understanding the relationship between O2, fish and plants as well as CO2 and pH. Also buffering and the supply water. How to get a system cycled and keep it in balance when harvesting or adding to it. How to know when things need attention and how to figure out what kind of attention.

Ya know, I'm not sure I could be nearly so far along with AP without the internet and this forum. Any community that gets an AP system really needs a resource like this.