Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is Ed in Texas, hi.

Where can I find all there is to know about constructing a balanced sustainable system for, FOUR humans? Example, design, dimensions, capacity of all the components, operation and how to plant and add grow beds as adding fish so to have food all year round without having all the food at once.

One quick question. Is it possible to substitute fresh water shrimp/prawns for fish?

If so, what changes?

http://www.aquacultureoftexas.com/tanks.htm

Thanks, for providing the missing link to help keep our planet Blue, not green like it is.

Where can I find water or how can I get rain water to 99.9% pure H2O?

The pH of distilled water is between 5.6 and 7. To neutralize distilled water, add about 1/8 teaspoon baking soda, stir well, and check the pH of the water with a pH indicator.

http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/education/experiment1.html

http://www.scholarshipsinindia.com/answ ... water.html

What is the best PH for aquaponic system?

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Why exactly would you want pure H2O? It's probably possible to purify rainwater into almost pure H2O by reverse osmosis, or a combination of distillation, ion exchange or other techinques. But it will be expensive, slow and/or energy demanding.

Also, pure H2O actually doesn't taste too good, and in pure form it's not much good for anything except lab experiments. "Healthy" water contains traces of minerals and other things, which isn't necessarily bad!


You can find a lot of information on this forum. If there's something specific you're looking for, you can use the search button.

There isn't such thing as a perfect aquaponics system; it all depends on personal preferences, availability of materials, fish and veg species, local weather conditions etc. But if you want to feed a family of four from an aquaponics system, without buying any other food (for human consumption), I suggest you do some research and experimenting beforehand! Also, I think that things like wheat and potatoes are easier (and cheaper) to grow the traditional way, since they require so much space.

Anyway, you will probably need multiple fish tanks for staggered production, if you want fish all year round. Depending on the climate you're in, you have to decide whether to grow fish indoors or outdoors, and whether you need a greenhouse or not. You'll have to decide whether you want growbeds with media in them (either constant flow (CF) or flood and drain (F&D)), or floating rafts, or a combination of those (though there are other techniques as well). You'll need one or more pumps, depending on the system layout - either rated for continuous use or on a timer - and probably at least one air pump too. It would be good to think about an emergency backup system should the power fail.

Also, you can add more factors to the 'ecosystem'; for instance rabbits (some fish can actually live on rabbit poop!), worms, black soldier flies (BSF), etc.; making the system increasingly complex, but also more diverse and self-sufficient.


Yes, it's possible to substitue shrimp for fish. You don't need many changes, in that the input (fish food) and filtering will probably be mostly the same, but as you probably know most fish don't like being kept in cages with layers of bird netting Although I did hear about somebody in Norway using that technique to grow halibut!


Edit: I see that you wrote a reply in the time that I was writing this one. The best pH for an aquaponics system is a tradeoff between a low-ish (6,0-6,5) pH preferred by the plants and nitrifying bacteria, and a higher (7,0-8,5) pH preferred by most fish. So a neutral pH (around 7) would be great.
But most people will tend to leave the pH alone, as a mature aquaponics system usually balances itself somewhere between 6 and 8 (anything in that range is OK).

Welcome Highwayman... Xzorby has answered your question relating to preferred pH in aquaponics...

But with regard to "distilled" water.... sorry but the distillation process result in water of pH neutral... esentially "pure" water....

Rainwater could be acidic (acid rain) pH 5.6-7.... from combination with CO2... to form a carbonic acid... but this dissociates easily... and would certainly do so under the process of distillation...

Eventually we will get a BYAP Francise on this side of the Pacific and you will be able to do a one stop shop But until then check out what BYAP has to offer and all the good designs by forum members and do your best to duplicate as best as possible with what we have over here. Ratio's are important
But just check out members's system photo's and read why they chose their designs.
It's not addictive...really

You ask a few hard questions that are likely to get the "It Depends" answer or around here, more likely a sew of questions asked back to you.

There are some Texans on the forum here that might be of assistance to you. I'm not sure where in Texas you are so don't know quite what your climate is.

Yes there are fresh water shrimp or prawns, I'm not sure if the big ones are legal there in TX, here in FL I would have to get an aquaculture license to raise them. The big tiger prawns need lots of space as they are territorial. I've become quite partial to Channel Catfish, they can survive freezing temperatures as well as very warm water.

How much space do you have, what kind of system do you want, what is your source water, What kind of pumping, what kind of aeration, what kind of filtration, what kind of fish do you want, what kinds of veggies do you like, what is your weather like, what will you be feeding the fish??? And the list of questions goes on.
So
I highly recommend reading the Basic Info and Useful Info sections of the forum, they will help answer many of the basic questions that come up. Then I might suggest reading a few of the big long Member Systems threads. Perhaps DanDMan's system thread would be a good choice of a system thread to read for you.
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2611

Oh, and Welcome to the Forum!

Actually, I should qualify that answer.... as these days atmospheric polluntants, the same ones that cause "acid rain"... sulphuric and nitric compounds...While dissapated by distillation, the absorbtion of CO2 into distilled water left exposed to air... will very possibly result in a pH from 6-7.... as any CO2 bubbled off during the distillation may be reabsorbed from the atmosphere... as the distallation process may well have removed any "buffering" compounds from the water...

i.e... as the rain water is no longer "pure" to begin with... and acidic... it most likely wouldn't have any buffering effect even before distallation...

Hey, Highwayman! Welcome!

The only freshwater shrimp I know of that grow large enough for people are macrobrachium rosenbergii. These do just fine eating leftover food and other solids (bacteria etc) from a fish operation, so are often used in AP systems like the commercial system someone is running in Hawaii. Too bad they, like tilapia, need warm water. They also need a lot of space since they are cannibalistic. Salt-water shrimp are much easier.

Crawfish/crawdads are possible, but also low density so you will need a lot of space for a lb of them.