Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I agree with RWTD on fresh fish and Veg, I think it will be a long time before my system paid for itself, but then it's a hobby like restoring cars and bikes or golf etc, I have actually restored a couple of cars, whilst you sell them for heaps I doubt you would recoup your costs if you take into account personal hours, so AP much the same a nice hobby, after initial costs I would say yes you will end up in front, but again a long time to recoup setup costs, but I suppose if I had to sell my system I would get back a big amount of what it cost to set up, but to me anyhow it's not about making or loosing money it is for the enjoyment and social aspect of the forum here for 1 and a good social thing for our small community, we have a lot of visitors (which usually turns into a lot of hangovers) wanting to see how things work which has turned a few into APer's so again different group of friends, I could almost set up tour times, I get a buzz out of the tourist's as well so finally it is about all of the above and least about money, but AP can be built cheaper than some have done it and yes they can make it pay

can I use that?

Yep!

I've been crunching a few numbers of my own ,, a dollar or two can be made using areas not in use for the family food. As usuall price is the crunch ,, you need to find a seasonal product that sells at a high price out od season.
I've found 2 so far and have 8 restaurants wanting me to supply.
I'll let you know NEXT winter:)

Hi Taz
Of courseyoucan

From a commercial aspect, all infrasturture- tanks, ponds, grow beds- are considered capital costs (life span longer than one year and not part of on-going operating expenses). You write down (through depreciation) only a portion of the capital costs every year, based on their expected longevity. So a tank, with a life expectency of 20 years is written down over a period of 22 calander years- 1st year for the months in place, 2nd-20th year- full yearly depreciation and in the final year, for the few months not taken in the 1st year. Also capital costs increase the total value of the property (provided you own it), which makes it more valuable to banks as well as prospective buyers.

When viewed from this perspective, AP systems are very economical. Even some of you hobbists may find that the bottom line is not as bad as you originally thought.

Add in the advantages of selling out-of-season produce, additional value added products (AP is value added already- no pesticides, natural fertilizer, so forth) such as fillets, bagged salad mixes, specialty salad mixes, micro greens, custom growing or commercial kitchen products such as marinades, chutneys, sauces, smoked meat, etc. and you could potentially have a huge enterprise.

One thing I forgot to mention about my systems is that while the return on investment is short there are other factors that make it less of a value of a purchased system like the fact that it can not be moved, resold, rearranged or added on to without a considerable amount of effort and the life expectancy of a liner is not going to compare to the plastic tanks which means I have a LOT of work ahead of me when the liner(s) have an issue. When I compare my system to one of Joels systems his comes out as a better investment in the "long haul"; I never want to wash and shovel that much gravel again.

Also, how fast you "break even" depends on how you work the system. If all you do is show people the pretty plants and "ohhh ahhhh" while sipping a brew then its not going to return value in money, but how can you put a value on those guest stopping by, the endless hours of watching the fish swim, or that quick dip in the fish tank while no one is looking. I cant think of a better way to spend some money than on a good proven, headache free AP system. Especially if someone else washed the clay and set it up for me.

Vertical integration through value-adding, certainly opens up other income streams Angie... and can be potentially profitable...

But, typically...can be very labour intensive... as Chappo has pointed out before, labour needs to be factored into costs from a commercial point of view...

And once you scale up, you may be surprised just how much time & labour is required to run a "commercial" aquaponics system....

This is certainly my experience from running a "small" scale hydroponics operation... in comparison to running a couple of tables as a hobby... scaling up to 20 tables was about 200 x (+) increase in labour.. not 20 times...

Dan, If you went with the heavy EPDM (which I thought you did) liner, then I expect that to last as long as most plastic tanks and longer than some. Short of a critter chewing through it (which a critter could chew through a plastic tank too if they can manage to snag a tooth on it somewhere) or a knife of power tool punching through it, those pond liners are tough.

along them lines Rupe, if you are looking at making money out of it even as a semi hobby, you should then take into account your time, what is your time worth, even use your hourly rate from work as a scale, in doing that I doubt anyone would be in front Even full on commercial I think the price a produce would be ridiculously high to cover running costs, Labour, Electricity, Water, Food for Fish, Rupe would be interested to know if you took these things into account, can you make a living? I doubt you would just out of a commercial system, you still do the Fresh by Nature installs and sales, it would be interesting to hear if EB's huge commercial system would ever be a viable self supporting business.
I don't think the majority of APer's ever think about making money out of produce, or even breaking even, as RWTD has mentioned it's all about quality, but on the other hand I wouldn't pay $5 for a quality lettuce in a shop, but it probably costs nearly that much to grow one at home, again taking into account personal hours, when your picking and eating your veggies or catching fish, they certainly aren't free, but again who takes into account production costs? or who actually cares about production costs?
It can be done in 3rd world country's where or the manual labour is free or cheaper, like if a village depended on a system for survival then you could have manual pedal pumps etc, but then this is still not making money, it's a necessity.
This is a very interesting topic and great discussion, but seriously how many people are getting into AP with the vision of making money? to me with AP I now eat things and grow things I never would have before, I (until a couple of weeks ago) have never eaten Trout, and if not for AP probably would never have done, I am going to more and better quality veggies, so taking the money out of it, the health benefits are huge including the stress free relaxation you get when everything is working, sort of equals out the stress when things aren't working I suppose and also as mentioned AP has a great social aspect as well.
To me AP will always be a fantastic alternative to the genetic rubbish we now buy in the Supermarkets, and a source of relaxation and achievement, sure you can set up a system for next to nothing but you still have to maintain it, buy stock, buy fish food, pay for power, water, you can have a little system run from an aquarium, but you still would never be self supporting, and really for most in Oz I think it is still a very different hobby with some return

Nocky.. the small scale hydroponics operation was something I did many years ago... although I did setup a similar sized opeartion for a friend not so long ago....


And hope to again before summer....

20 tables represents about 8,000-10,000 plants... and a full time operation (7 days a week) for a single person (or two... depending how long a day you're prepared to put in).... planting, harvesting, selling, maintenance etc..

Well there seem to be two discussions going on here.

The original poster asked is aquaponics a good investment?
To that I say definitely yes. How long till the investment pays you back, well that is harder to know since it depends on many things.

The other discussion seems to be can aquaponics earn you money? Well on a backyard scale, perhaps you can get some money from the aquaponics but probably not more than you spend on it. There are commercial operations out there that are at least managing not to have gone broke, time will tell if they last long term. Back to the backyard scale, I doubt a "backyard" as in not commercial, set up can manage to pay for itself and running costs as well as bring in enough profit to support a family, mortgage, bills, taxes and everything else while still fitting in a "normal" backyard and not consuming the entire family's time full time.

Incidentally, I've seen figures somewhere that took lifecycle costs into account when comparing the price of a healthy diet. Basically the breakdown was that healthy, fresh fruits and veggies along with high quality proteins cost something like twice the amount that the cheap factory food does, but you save a great deal more on medical costs in the last decades of your life.

I agree TCL... aquaponics is certainly a good investment... on a personal level...

And possibly on a "commercial" level... depending on scale, market and expectations of return...

As you say.. hard to quantify some of these things... and the true cost of labour is always one of the things hard to quantify... unless you've done it/do it...

Another thing to take into account is what you would of spent the money on if you had not invested in AP. In that case my system is allready paid for.