Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

CCRES AQUAPONICS sound like idiots... I did a little searching and found them posting everywhere, basically 2-3 word comments on other peoples stuff. Then make a blog site that is just everyone else's stuff from around the www.... Whats the point, they aren't really doing much of value from what I can see anywhere...

Crap, crap, crap.... The more I read the more I realize it's a money making venture without any sort of reputable background...

SEO and marketing perhaps? Content is key, and what's better than simply 'promoting' the work of others.
It's a frowned upon tactic, but it works... even we are talking about them

So... Can AP help the worlds?
Or need more improvement.

I think AP can help the world if everyone make it at home using used container. Produce food, reduce transportation and reduce food reservation requirement(freezing, fermentation, reservation substance, food packaging, etc")
But almost impossible to train everyone to be able to do AP.

Commercial AP is not financial viable because AP system has to compromise fish and plant needs. So we can not maximize production Fish AND Plant.

I'm think about do RAS and use waste from RAS to grow hydroponics separately.
This way we can maximize fish and plant growth, we can set the systems the condition fish and plant need because separate system.

I have a number of objections to this statement.

First why does ap have to maximise the production of both fish and plants? I would say that it is certainly possible to have a system biassed towards plant production and be profitable, it may be posible to have a system be fish focused and be profitable and may even be posible to maximise both or at least make money from both. The thing is though we don't know yet either way and pronouncements like this whether in the negative our the putative are at this stage merely opinions.

Secondly if ap is good and there are environmental and economic benefits to producing fish and veggies in ap on a large scale in a dispersed manner (ie many individual systems in peoples backyards) then there will be even bigger benefits inherent in a large scale concentrated production (ie comercial system). This is mostly because of the economies of scale. When taking about economies of scale I am not only talking about money but also carbon foot print, environmental effects and labour. The carbon footprint per unit of production is going to me drastically less than that of a backyard system. If ap doesn't have significant benefits on a large scale then it is unlikely to on a small scale and what we have is a quirky hobby that is another aspect of our consumerist based society and economy touted as environmentally friendly.

IMNSHO

Hi Straut,
Your comments usually interesting to me. and may be this is first time I don't agree with you.

This question I have to ask you back.
If we focus on fish why don't do RAS.
If we focus on vegetable why don't do Hydroponics, dirt garden, even hydroponic using waste can grow plant(something like peeponic)
If focus on both why don't separate them.



The key concept of AP is make complete ecosystem in food production(as much as we can). So this become most important property of AP, the independence(not 100% but atlese no waste, less use of water)
And this make AP suitable to be distribution food prod. system, product at every house.
People will get full benefit if they do AP nearest their kitchen.
No transportation, no packing, no buy/sell activity, no food reservation, eat fresh.
The system can be made of used container.

But in commercial AP is different.
The system must be reliable, so must expensive.
Then we need to sell product, need packing, need transportation, need to freeze product, need marketing, planing.
And the benefit of independent will be less in industry level.
If you raise chicken at home, chicken poo will be waste(if you don't have enough plant to use fertilizer)
But if you do chicken farm, chicken poo can be sold.
In industry level waste, byproduct, of one industry can be used in others industry.

AP too, even you focus on vegetable only you still need to keep you fish alive, you need to put energy to do that. so the question is why don't maximize both fish and plant

To maximize production of both fish and plant, I think, it's better to separate them.
With separation AP you can set condition to fit fish need in RAS, pH, temp., salt...
You can have many conditions for many species of fish.
You can set condition for plants in Hydroponics using waste from RAS. You can have 6.0pH for plant, cold temp, less salt....
You can even do RAS on the basement and Hydro on the roof with little more energy required.
You can use U-tube aerator pump air to 10 m depth for oxygenate your plant without worry of nitrogen saturation.

More complicate to make suitable both fish and plant in same system.

In industry we have to separate task to be smaller.: benefit is more production. But more resource required.
In nature life wore together : benefit is less resource required. but fair production.

And probably more labour... and more expense.... (commercially)

What is IMNSHO mean?

In My Not So Humble Opinion, hard for me to translate that to Thai, but your English is so good, you probably understand

The reason not to do them and do ap instead is that there is because I believe it is possible to do them together better than they can be done seperately at least for some crops and fish. Whether this is the case or not has not yet been seriously attempted. By not seriously attempted I mean that an ap system designer has not built a prototype and then gone on to make a system with such economies of scale that it can compete with other production methods in the whole sale market place.

As to why not do ras and hydro separately, first if they are done along side each other with one complimenting the other then I believe that this is actually aquaponics. Others may disaggree and redefine ap from the combination of aq and hydro to something more "pure" and intergrated.

Which doesn't mean to say I think it is a good idea. There are certain aspects to both ras and hydro that are wasteful. Fully integrating the two systems could work (we don't know yet) and such systems could have benefits both economically and environmentally that running joined aq and hydro systems in tandem (its still ap) do not have.



The problem is that people don't have time/interest. There may be a significant percentage of people that have their own byap system but the principles of dirt gardening are easily available an only a small fraction of the population even have a veggie garden let alone grow a significant percentage of their annual food requirements.

This means that the rest of societies food will have to be produced by farmers. A profession that is getting more and more sophisticated even in traditional methods of growing food let alone more complicated practices like aq, hydro, etc.

This sophistication is leading farmers to be more and more efficient with their use of resources. As more of the true costs are being included in our economy (water, environmental foot print) this also means that ways of doing things cheaper are often also ways of doing things so that they have less impact on the environment.


These are all benefits of byap but only a few are ever going to realise them. Much of industry is going to have to address many of these issues in the coming decade commercial ap if it works will be no different.

Re using something can be one of the cheapest/most environmentally friendly things you can do because there is often more of an environmental footprint in the making of things than in their transportation. So reusing something saves the making something else and saves on getting it to you. However since most of the environmental foot print comes from making a thing transportation is less of an issue. This is where the economies of scale reduce the environmental footprint. It takes a certain amount of resources to build a pump, building a pump with twice the capacity takes a lot less than twice the resources. Tanks as they get larger use less resources per unit of volume and incidentally less labour to operate. They also need less fittings and this is where reusing many secondhand containers can come unstuck both environmentally and economically.

Before building my byap system I did extensive costings on different gb and tank options from baths, fridge/freezer shells, etc. The only containers that I could find where it was economic were ibcs but that was before the prices went though the roof on them. Anyone who is going to attempt ap at a larger scale even in their own backyard is probably going to find that it is cheaper and more environmentally friendly to build a system with few large specially constructed gbs and fts from liners rather than reusing and then plumbing many multiple second hand containers. Individuals may get lucky and get given a tank and even a box of fittings to reuse but such finds would only get rarer as more people took up ap.



The components of a system ft, gb, plumbing, pump etc can actually cost less than a byap system per unit of production even when compared with reused components. My system was sized to provide fish and vegies for my extended family. At 8000L ft the cheapest way to do a system that size was to build the ft and gbs rather than use the pile of baths, spas, old tanks and fridge shells that I had initially planed on using.

Control systems are almost unknown in byap and they do cost money even a lot of money but that doesn't mean they are expensive. Lets say a control system for a 2000m2 intensive ap system costs $100k. The cost for a 4000m2 system is likely to be around $110k. The former may be expensive but I assure you the later is not acording to all the pricing and modelling that I have done. Also the control system may allow the operator to push the system safely maximising its production and thereby reducing its environmental footprint per unit of production.

Aq and hydro in tandem has been tried by Priva in Holland with the numbers on their trial looked good. They were going to build a larger system but the gfc hit and it got shelved. Their ap system was incredible but by running the system with aq and hydro components in tandem rather than integrated meant that many of the benefits of ap were not realised but on the plus side they didn't have to work how to run a fully intergrated system. I don't know whether fully integrated ap can work comercially or not but then no one else does yet either. I'm certainly going to give it go.

I started doing that a while ago when their was a series of posts years ago by a string of people not around today who used IMHO who came accross as not very humble at all.

The best numbers I ran so far where diverting some water from the operation to a drain to waste system using added nutrients. I did generic testing vs Gh brand nutrients and it was promising. A large more stable system with proper testing to check what is deficient then dosing with automated pumps into the drain to waste water seems viable.

The method was a standard Ap setup so the all natural all organic side can stay that way but waste water is used as starting water for hydro then a final clean of water using algae for nutritional supplement use.

I like to use FWIW for what it's worth as a qualifier for everything.

I like your statements Stuart, too bad they're in this thread about some dumbass who is putting AP grafitti on perfectly good youtubes.

Thank you Dui, my English is just fair, very tried to write or read English.

Straut,
I think wee see same thing but interpret different way.
We agree that no way to have AP in every house, so the world still has to have commercial farm anyway.
We agree that BYAP is good.

But what I don't agree with you is you can not calculate cost and judge the number is good or bad.
We have to compare to competitor.
For fish we have to compare with RAS( I assume RAS is industry standard)
For plant we have to compare with Hydroponics ( Assume again)

In case of AP system that emphasize on plant, we have to compare to Hydroponics.
Assume that
1 AP system that emphasize on plant = Hydroponics system + Fish system
2 AP system is DWC
3 Cost of Fish system (FT + Filter + Aerator + solid settler + bio filter+...) = Cost of Hydroponics system

With these assumption, investment cost of AP is double normal hydroponics.
We may get free fertilizer but you have to spend pallet and energy for fish.
Let see this. How easy hydroponics.
http://topicstock.pantip.com/jatujak/to ... 02240.html

In case of AP system focus on both fish&plant
We need automatic water condition adjustment in and out of FT on...
- pH, inject acid or base. Expensive sensor, high maintenance in dirty environment like AP(even in cleaner hydroponics).
- Temp., use heat pump warm water in FT cool water out to GB. If you use warm species fish.
- Salinity, no idea on this.
The cost will be higher than RAS + Hydro for sure.

I hope proof can exist in AP, unlike your slogan. Just kidding 555(HaHaHa in Thai)

Another issue on commercial AP is AP tie fish and plant so it's not flexible to change.
If veg is cheap(some season veg very cheap in Thailand)we want to produce only Fish.
If we want to change fish specie , stock density.
If fish infect decease.
More difficult to manage AP on this situation. Much easier if we separate them.

I'm wondering if you could have the first bed in a system (would need to be a big one) that was growing something highly acidic, say onions or something that would reduce the PH.
Then flow that water onto the next stage, then back to another bed filled with limestone and then back to the sump.
Would be an interesting experiment...
All adds to the cost though, obviously.

I read somewhere there is a system add acid to water flow to plant and add base when return to fish tank.
It's not my idea. And I don't think it's good idea.