Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have read countless about ineffective commercial applications but I cannot fathom why there are profitable soil, hydroponic farms, and aquaculture yet aquaponics has such a hard time.

Here is my basic idea: (meaning I need what is wrong with it explained because I'm sure it's been considered)

Suppose there is a profitable aquaculture. Currently, a lot of water is being exchanged and sadly ends up in underground water supplies and steams destroying ecosystems.

To solve this, aquaponics. We all thought this.

Since land is a valuable resource, building up with an nft scaffolding minimizes that. A massive pump would be required to push so much water but aside from initial construction cost there are few other reoccurring costs such as new net pots, the labor, maintenance.

Ignore the land factor, a giant farm is not space efficient. Put a massive aquaponic system and design troughs, nfts, towers to maximize growing area. More area for crops taking advantage of vertical space and fish space isn't that massive.


Why can hydroponics and aquaculture work independently but not cohesively?

A lot of soil farms are subsidized to a great extent, and a lot of fish are not sustainably farmed. Even without these, though, soil farms have had thousands of years of practice and there are standard procedures and equipment that almost guarantee success... and even then many farmers are broke.

I would LOVE to do aquaponics commercially, but it really is more of an opportunity to bring people back to where we were 100 years ago and bringing us closer to our food source. We may never see a vigorously successful AP business, but we can still have some serious impact on our communities by having individual backyard setups that can provide cheap and healthy food that tastes better than the stuff they pass off as food in the grocery stores.


Commercial viability is pretty easy to figure out on paper (excel?) Just take your known expenses: facilities rent, electricity, water, feed, seed, insurance, back office stuff (accounting, taxes, etc), equipment upkeep. Add 10% because you're guaranteed to forget something. Then take your expected profit per unit sold and you can figure out how many units you need to produce per month to stay afloat. Then add 10% to that because things go wrong. Double your expected time at the 'office' because people always underestimate their time.

For the best chance of success, you'd want several high-yield and marketable crops (as opposed to a single crop which puts all your eggs in one basket). I also have a feeling that the only way for this to be profitable is to be able to go huge.

slowRider states it how it is.

Whatever resources you think you will need. Double it.

Yea I dont think there are many traditional farms out there that are doing real well in reality. They have their good times no doubt but you always hear of so many strugglers... and then add in all the extra infrastucture and labour required for a functioning commercial AP system and market requirements etc etc... Im yet to be convinced it can be done as a sole income driven venture. I am trying to be optomistic and I hope someone gets it right, especially for those poorer and less fortunate countries and areas.

Most of the poorer and less fortunate countries... don't have a reliable power supply... access to good water...

And aren't that interested in lettuce sandwiches... and can either buy Tilapia for nothing... or drag a net through a sewer/river/pond...

AP has a place in backyards in many such countries, especially Asia.... but feeding the world... it bullshit...


Now as to someone getting it right.. (hopefully)...and a truely commercial system... watch this space... here in Australia...

There'll be a public announcement of commissioning of Stage I... end of this month...

I knew you were up to something Rupe!

Excited to see the developments

No, no... not my system MacGyver.. I wish....

Stage I has already cost $8million+.... and then there's Stage II... and Stage III...

Sounds like they mean business.

Looking forward to hearing more in the near future

You will... as soon as it's made public.... and/or I'm allowed to tell anything...

See that carrot you are dangling right there Rup. That one RIGHT there?!

Thats just mean

From what I can gather, in order to be sucessful commercially you have to sell to Coles or Woolworths. They stipulate how much produce they want, when they want it and how much they are going to pay for it.

if you don't agree then they will undercut you until you go broke.

This is what happenned in America (ref: Fast Food Nation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation ) and in the United Kingdom (ref: Tescopoly http://www.tescopoly.org/ )

Farmers don't own farms, banks do.

Currently I expect the reason that every fish farm hasn't gone and added aquaponics to their operation is that it is still cheaper for them to dump and replace water because they can. Since fish are their primary crop and trying to deal with all the stuff required to add enough plants to their systems to do away with the need for water changes would actually be a rather monumental undertaking when they are probably not raking it in and may not have the know how or labor to deal with planting, harvesting and marketing veggies.

Vice versa, many large hydro operations like how they are doing it, being able to fine tune their nutrients to perfectly match the plant requirements and the idea of having to compromise in order to have fish and plants involved and all the extra equipment and fish tanks etc just doesn't appeal to them to have yet one more thing that could crash and ruin a crop.

So most people going into Aquaponics as a commercial venture are starting out small, probably too small to make a big wholesale mega farm oriented economy even notice them. And at that small CSA or boutique sort of niche farm, trying to operate with only the family labor or a little more, if they are making it, they are probably so busy they have little time to talk about it on the internet.

See trying to compete (at least here in the USA) where people are used to being able to buy heads of lettuce for less than a dollar and California has huge field farms with mechanical harvesting/washing/packaging of greens. It can get hard to simply cover the cost of feed and electricity let alone paying yourself or paying for the costs of building the system. You actually have to find a market for your product where you are not having to compete on price with the "cheap" food. While some people seem willing to pay more for good clean food. Many people seem to think that "well yea I know it's toxin free and local so I think that should mean it should be a fraction of the price of the stuff that was shipped around the world."

I have a theory that any pursuit has what I like to call a hidden "Winged Keel". What I mean by this is that some modification that was once not incorporated into the design ends up making all the difference and something that was once impossible becomes possible.

So the question is what is the "Winged Keel" of commercial aquaponics?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_keel

Fish to Grow bed ratio?????