Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Might work for hydro dosing systems...

But wouldn't be good for fish in AP...

I knew there was something nagging at the back of my mind with the hydro vs AP thing.
One of the first reports I read about it, but a lot of beer has flowed through my bio-filter since reading it and I forgot until tonight...

http://www.aquaponicsjournal.com/docs/a ... perior.pdf

Doesn't mean AP couldn't be made better of course, there's always a way to squeeze a little more from something. but at what cost? (not just financial)

I don't understand the paragraph.

Is it mean he use special food and fish still not grow quickly?

I think he is saying that to get the good growth of fish and plants you MUST use well formulated fish feeds. You don't get good enough growth if you use "urban and rural organic matter"..

Thanks EB,

What is "urban and organic matter"?

I assume by Organic he means feeding them ONLY Duckweed and plants etc.
It might be good enough for the fish, but you won't get the best results with the plants, for that you need to give them a well balanced diet.

Urban means "in the city"
Rural means "outside the city (in the countryside)"

I feed mine a mix of pellets and anything else they'll eat, corn, pak boong pak chi, etc etc.

the big thing i noticed about a large system was it's resiliance. pH testing was done weekly, or after heavy rain fall... the natural like ecosystem in the large floating raft system keeps things in balance... like the way a stream is balanced in nature...

and for now AP is still labor intensive... well, the harvesting is... you could use automated feeding systems and pH systems, but no machines have yet to be created that can harvest the crop... i think once this is done, AP stands a chance to take off since its crop can be ushered around, where as stuff planted in the ground is stationary...

what i mean by that is if you have a raft system, the rafts move... one automated harvesting machine at one end of the troughs, and a system of pulleys to push the rafts to that end.

planting is a bit more complicated with the whole vacuum planters that i've seen to make planting by hand a bit easier... but with enough mind focusing on the same problem, it could be fixed and then the whole farm could be automated...

i think the high labor cost is what's keeping AP from being commercialized in the first world countries... i've seen what percentage of the gross goes into labor, and it's not pretty... in this country... but put an AP system in a place that needs vegetables and have no minimum wage base... and that my friends is where profits can be made... im thinking deserts and the communities the choose (or are forced) to live in them... these places are already paying top dollar for produce to be shipped in... so why not use aquaponics to grow it locally, get around the shipping cost, and still charge the same market price? most of our produce comes from the second or third world anyways... lol i live in ohio and i saw a box of limes from peru... now imagine if you could produce the same limes, charge the same price, but not have to pay for it's transport cost... granted limes are a bit of a bad example because of the type of climate needed to grow them... but even things like tomatoes demand a high price during the winters here, and i believe most of them come from a second world country as well...

Dui you may right, duckweed and local fish food.
I know the vocabulary but I though using that words may have some special English/jargon meaning.
But no problem we have to interpret anyway.

Damon, move to 2nd, 3rd world, we wil find dirt garden again, hahaha. we have discussed.

lol yeah, most people in the 2nd and 3rd world countries tend to take their survival into their own hands. i guess the real trick would be to find well established cities in those countries that are populated with people like the first worlders... too preoccupied with law firms and business deals.

To separate the Plants from the fish you lose the water savings. Now you can send the change water from RAS to the Hydroponics and get a single re-use out of it but when you have them separated I fear you must dump the water at some point. In the Integrated Aquaponics, the water from the plant side gets to re-circulate back to the fish side and all you do it top up. No water change outs, no dumping and replacing of the hydroponic nutrients. No waste water to deal with and much reduced water usage for topping up the system.

That is the primary reason I think Aquaponics is so important. Now in some locations where good clean water is plentiful it might not seem so important but as the population grows on this planet, the water supplies for drinking and growing our food are getting stretched to the brink and that is where I feel the Integrated Aquaponics is so important, to "Grow More Food with Every Drop."

Is it ever going to be financially viable as a commercial operation, well some people are managing to find niche markets for it. And when the "collapse" comes and money means little, well perhaps the people who can figure out how to grow more food with the least amount of clean water will be the "rich" ones.

Exactly. Many places around the world are running out of water and as they do anything that saves water is going to be comparitively cheaper/more valuable. On the news the other day they were talking about an underground lake in India that had taken thousands of years to fill and had been emptied in less than a hundred. Spain grows much of the vegies for europe and demand for their produce is going up but they are starting to run out of water so that they are having trouble maintaining supply let alone increasing production.

Here in Australia water scarcity had dropped off the publics radar because of the floods we have had and indeed are having right now north. In fact on the country news they were talking about how much fruit and veg was being thrown out because of an over supply. That wil l change before the next drought.

That's OK, we can use what's left of the fresh water to grow algae and other bio-fuel crops, so that we can then run desalinators and get fresh water out of the ocean...

World Bank again. Heard their B. S. before. OG, AP, and HP education is what the poor in third world countries need along with good basic education from caring people and organizations. The World Bank doesn't have a clue.

Hi TCL, Stuart
Water top up for RAS is 10% /day to eliminate nitrate.
ฺBut in modern RAS has denitrification equipment, required very little top up water.
Water top up from this system can be 2-3% /day, from backwash drum filter or washing of the solid separator, and can be used to top up the hydroponics.

I think the greatest water usage is from evaporation in hydroponics.
If we separate RAS and Hydorponics, we can use little good quality water top up the RAS.
Then use waste water from RAS top up hydorponics.
but still not enough for hydroponics evaporation, then we can use bad quality water to top up hydroponics.
I have large pond that has water available all year round.
I can't use the pond water to top up AP because worry about fish parasite and AP nutrient balance.

Tie hydroponics and RAS together in AP has fragile mass balance to be kept.
This is the problem, imo.
AP is good in family level because it's simplicity.
But in industry level it's become problem.

AO+ Can we get this link in English? Looks great. John http://topicstock.pantip.com/jatujak/to ... 02240.html