Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My dream is a world without eating animals.

Fair enough.... but I didn't crawl to the top of the food chain.. just to eat a lettuce salad everyday...

I did think of just eating vegetarian once... but none of them would stay still long enough....

That is a nice dream. I was vegan for more than seven years... then I gave birth to a child who will not eat a bean.

God works in mysterious ways...

It got ridiculous... I made his baby food... and he ate everything before he had a choice...
Then, well, he's very particular. Plain, usually. and everything one at a time... where I like to put things together.

well, if anything, have the majority of the population realise how intensive growing animals is as opposed to plants.
The amount of energy to make a slab of burger meat vs some lettuce for instance.
I eat meat.

Could you make a maggot harvester where they just crawl out and drop into the fish tank?

Yep, sure.... search the forum... there's been several members who have built self harvesting BSF pods...

Hi,

if there is still someone here reading this: There is a thread on PeePonics in this forum. I was too lazy to read all of it, but maybe you will

Good points about water .. also electricity?

I'm just in the reading and learning phase, but I'd love to build a small single-barrel aquaponics system with my kids, incorporating a small SOLAR fountain pump, and try to get a system that pretty much runs itself except for fish feed.

The main concern for sustainability is water. You can produce your own fish food in an aquaponics environment with Duckweed, Soldier Flies, Worms, etc. You can also produce your own power to power the pumps with a Solar Panel Array tied into a Battery Series Backup. But you can never be truly self-sustainable since aquaponics, hydroponics, and even traditional farming all require water. And I would recommend to have some extra IBC totes or barrels just to store water if any shortage were to occur.

On a side note, I would be careful about introducing contaminants into your system. Backyard Aquaponics has great resources addressing such matters. Implementing Feces, improper cleaning of worms, etc have the potential to introduce e. coli and other harmful contaminants into systems.

I dunno, if I've got an AP system set up which works with solar energy and doesn't require the grid I think I'd definitely want to keep it up if the system fell apart.

Besides having fun, increasing sustainability (of urban apartment dwelling) is one of my main goals. Any food at all that I can produce in my apartment is progress, compared to driving to a grocery and purchasing food that was trucked there for me to buy. Or even going to the farmer's markets - there are several nearby, but the farmers and I all drive to those, too.

I'm going to meter my system to see how much power I add to it (for the grow lights and pump). I'm also going to look into making the fish food. I have a vermicompost bin, so they can eat some worms, and the veggie scraps can help feed the worms. The worms do reproduce quickly when they're happy, but they won't be enough for a sole food source.

Reduced impact is a reasonable goal. If I ever DO develop a closed loop (except for replacing water lost to evaporation), I'm telling NASA! :-)

Don't get me wrong I think growing some of your own food is a good idea but often it is not more sustainable.

It might not be. I'm going to meter the electric power I have to add to the system also. Once the system is stable, I'd like it to at least break even from that perspective. But that doesn't mean it's sustainable, environmentally. Getting at the true "cost" of anything is harder than it sounds, but that's part of the challenge that makes me interested in it!

javin007
There is no such thing as self sustaining system that can support your food consumption needs. Even if you feed your Tilapia the way Chinese are doing it, it is still not going to do it for you.

In my case, the only reason I have my Aquaponics is to have a good quality food for me and my loved ones. I do use good quality fish food, specially when I make it myself, and I have plans to expand my system as soon as I build a good size green house.

Aquaponics is not cheap, not self sustaining, and not easy to take care of, but there is a price for everything in life!!