Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Rupert I feel the same way about Aquaponics I don't see a benifit to marketing produce as Aquaponics, my personal preference is to sell food that people like and request more.


My question is why is soil left out of hypronics? Itsnot the meaning of hydroponics, water,working?
I use soil in Aquaponics all the time the major difference is Ph stability, soil systems the Ph don't ever move. Soil in AP is awesum.


Again can someone use seience to show me why soil is not used in AP.

Short answer is no.

Science has nothing to do with it. Hydroponics is defined as not using soil. AP is defined as HP and AQ therefore by definition (not science) doesn't involve soil.

That is just semantics though. There is no reason why you cant include soil in some way, wicking beds for example, whats important if the quality of food you produce and how many resources you use in the process.

The biological activity that can be supported by soil is way higher than any soiless media can ever be. The microzia fungi network is a game changer when it comes to continuous explosive plant growth.

Hi Damian, have you got any details on your soil based ap systems? My experiments with it to date have been nothing short of underwhelming!

I can show you some pics tomorrow. What did you try to do that did not work? Did you let the roots conilise the media first?

Most of the info I have on soil is in my head somewhere I can remember lots of sources but where do I start it really is a lot of reading but I will shear everything I learned so far with you.

Shameless cut and paste.

Mycorrhizal fungi spores are the special ingredient in all-natural Plant Success Growth Stimulant. These beneficial fungi protect plants' roots from many fungal diseases, improve soil structure and assist with nutrient uptake. The result: stronger, healthier plants and increased yields.

Mycorrhizal Fungi colonize plant roots and extend the root system into the surrounding soil. By attaching to the feeder roots, mycorrhizae greatly extend the effective absorbing area available to plants. Research demonstrates that mycorrhizal filaments can explore volumes of soil hundreds to thousands of times greater than roots themselves. This relationship is beneficial because the plant enjoys improved nutrient and water uptake, disease resistance, superior survival and growth. In addition, the relationship is beneficial by providing more uniform growth, increased leaf size, more flowering and increased vegetable yields.

Under natural conditions, plants live in close association with many soil microorganisms. Some are beneficial others are not. Mycorrhizal fungi act as a bridge allowing beneficial organisms to pass, and prevent harmful pathogens from crossing over, to the plant. To prevent these pathogens from destroying crops most nurseries and farms have resorted to sterilizing the soil either with chemicals or heat. The drawback to this practice is the death of the beneficial microorganisms, which under natural conditions help the plant make food from its surrounding habitat. The soil sterilization process perpetuates the need for more fertilizers unless mycorrhizae are reintroduced into the soil and to the plants. In order to achieve maximum performance nearly all commercially grown plants require mycorrhizae upon transplanting.

What Are Mycorrhizal Fungi? "Mycor"-"rhiza" literally means fungus root and defines the mutually beneficial relationship between the plant root and the fungus. These specialized fungi colonize plant roots and extend far into the soil resource. Mycorrhizal fungal filaments in the soil are extensions of root systems and more effective in nutrient and water absorption than the roots themselves.

What Plants Form Specialized Roots With Mycorrhizal Fungi? Over 90% of the world?s plant species form mycorrhizae and require the association for maximum performance in non-artificial conditions.

How Do Mycorrhizal Fungi Increase Nutrient Uptake? These fungi increase the surface absorbing area of root 10 to 100x thereby greatly improving the ability of the plants to utilize the soil. Several miles of fungal filaments can be present in less than a thimbleful of soil. Mycorrhizal fungi increase nutrient uptake by increasing the surface absorbing area of roots, and by releasing powerful chemicals into the soil that dissolve hard to capture nutrients such as phosphorous, iron and other "tightly bound" soil nutrients. This extraction process is particularly important in plant nutrition and explains why non-mycorrhizal plants require high levels of fertilizers to maintain their health. Mycorrhizal fungi form an intricate web that captures and assimilates nutrients. In non-mycorrhizal conditions much of this fertility is wasted or lost from the system.

What Other Activities Do Mycorrhizal Fungi Do? Mycorrhizal fungi are involved with a wide variety of other activities that benefit plant establishment and growth. The same extensive network of fungal filaments is important in water uptake and storage. In non-irrigated conditions, mycorrhizal plants are under far less drought stress compared to non-mycorrhizal plants.

Disease and pathogen suppression is another benefit for a mycorrhizal plant. Mycorrhizal fungi attack pathogen or disease organisms entering the root zone. For example, excretions of specific antibiotics produced by mycorrhizal fungi immobilize and kill disease organisms. Some mycorrhizal fungi protect pine trees from Phtophtthora Fusarium and Rhizoctonia diseases. In addition, mycorrhizal roots have a mantle, a tight, interwoven sock like covering of dense filaments that acts as a physical barrier against the invasion of root diseases.

Mycorrhizal fungi also improves the soil structure. Mycorrhizal filaments produce humic compounds and organic "glues" (extracellular polysaccharides) that bind soils into aggregates and improves soil porosity. Soil porosity and soil structure positively influence the growth of plants by promoting aeration, water movement into soil, root growth, and distribution. In sandy or compacted soils the ability of mycorrhizal fungi to promote the improvement of soil structure is as important as seeking out nutrients.

Don't Soils Already Contain Mycorrhizal Fungi? Undisturbed soils are full of beneficiary soil organisms including mycorrhizal fungi. Research indicates however, many common practices can degrade the mycorrhizal forming potential of soil. Tillage, fertilization, removal of topsoil, erosion, site preparation, road and home construction fumigation, invasion of non-native plants, and leaving soil bare are some of the activities that can reduce or eliminate these beneficial soil fungi. Reintroducing mycorrhizal fungi in areas where they have been depleted can dramatically improve plant establishment and growth.

Many routine nursery practices such as fumigation and high levels of water and nutrients produce non-mycorrhizal plants that can grow well in artificial growing media, however they are poorly adapted to the garden environment.

Maybe but then why do we see such explosive growth in so many AP systems. There is nothing stopping fungi colonising gb media.

Hi Stuart before we go any further into this. Lets look at hydroponics closely, its is discribed as farming with out soil, witch in my opinion is false. Hydroponics has one advantage over traditional farming methods. That one advantage is acesses to plant roots and the dililivery of nutrents water and oxygen in a faction that can be manipulated rather easy.

The better definition for hydroponics would be not to exclude soil as a media but to say what it actually means using oxygen saturated water to grow plants.

Is that is the meaning then soil can't be excluded any more than river rocks, hydroton or perlite.

The cuestion comes do to if soil has any advantages in a hydroponics medium, the answer is no. In hydroponics the nutrents are in a slat based form, the nature of soil will mean that the soil will react in unpriditible ways when usedin conjunction with salt based nutrents. But Aquaponics uses natural processes not salts soil is the natural media for natural processes to take place.

Once you can swallow that then the next problem is how do you stop all the soil from watching into the fish tank? First people underestimate how high a water flow can be maintained through soil. It is well known that only 2.5% of our water is fresh water it is however a little know fact that 2% of that water is ice and .01 of that is on the surface as rivers etc. The 4.9 of so of it is trapped in the soil. The point I am trying to make is there is way more water in the soil than one the soil.


The question I should answer is if soil born bacteria, funngi and all the other processes that evolve to take place in the
Soil matrix can or do happen more effishently in gravel or some other inert media for our pourpouses.

Here is a good quick read about mechinical properties of soil.



Soil and Water Relationships

By Jeff Ball

Soil moisture limits forage production potential the most in semiarid regions. Estimated water use efficiency for irrigated and dry-land crop production systems is 50 percent, and available soil water has a large impact on management decisions producers make throughout the year. Soil moisture available for plant growth makes up approximately 0.01 percent of the world's stored water.

By understanding a little about the soil's physical properties and its relationship to soil moisture, you can make better soil-management decisions. Soil texture and structure greatly influence water infiltration, permeability, and water-holding capacity.

Soil texture refers to the composition of the soil in terms of the proportion of small, medium, and large particles (clay, silt, and sand, respectively) in a specific soil mass. For example, a coarse soil is a sand or loamy sand, a medium soil is a loam, silt loam, or silt, and a fine soil is a sandy clay, silty clay, or clay.

Soil structure refers to the arrangement of soil particles (sand, silt, and clay) into stable units called aggregates, which give soil its structure. Aggregates can be loose and friable, or they can form distinct, uniform patterns. For example, granular structure is loose and friable, blocky structure is six-sided and can have angled or rounded sides, and platelike structure is layered and may indicate compaction problems.

Soil porosity refers to the space between soil particles, which consists of various amounts of water and air. Porosity depends on both soil texture and structure. For example, a fine soil has smaller but more numerous pores than a coarse soil. A coarse soil has bigger particles than a fine soil, but it has less porosity, or overall pore space. Water can be held tighter in small pores than in large ones, so fine soils can hold more water than coarse soils.

Water infiltration is the movement of water from the soil surface into the soil profile. Soil texture, soil structure, and slope have the largest impact on infiltration rate. Water moves by gravity into the open pore spaces in the soil, and the size of the soil particles and their spacing determines how much water can flow in. Wide pore spacing at the soil surface increases the rate of water infiltration, so coarse soils have a higher infiltration rate than fine soils.

Permeability refers to the movement of air and water through the soil, which is important because it affects the supply of root-zone air, moisture, and nutrients available for plant uptake. A soil's permeability is determined by the relative rate of moisture and air movement through the most restrictive layer within the upper 40 inches of the effective root zone. Water and air rapidly permeate coarse soils with granular subsoils, which tend to be loose when moist and don't restrict water or air movement. Slow permeability is characteristic of a moderately fine subsoil with angular to subangular blocky structure. It is firm when moist and hard when dry.

Water-holding capacity is controlled primarily by soil texture and organic matter. Soils with smaller particles (silt and clay) have a larger surface area than those with larger sand particles, and a large surface area allows a soil to hold more water. In other words, a soil with a high percentage of silt and clay particles, which describes fine soil, has a higher water-holding capacity. The table illustrates water-holding-capacity differences as influenced by texture. Organic matter percentage also influences water-holding capacity. As the percentage increases, the water-holding capacity increases because of the affinity organic matter has for water.

Water availability is illustrated in the figure by water levels in three different soil types. Excess or gravitational water drains quickly from the soil after a heavy rain because of gravitational forces (saturation point to field capacity). Plants may use small amounts of this water before it moves out of the root zone. Available water is retained in the soil after the excess has drained (field capacity to wilting point). This water is the most important for crop or forage production. Plants can use approximately 50 percent of it without exhibiting stress, but if less than 50 percent is available, drought stress can result. Unavailable water is soil moisture that is held so tightly by the soil that it cannot be extracted by the plant. Water remains in the soil even below plants' wilting point.

One can see from the table that soil texture greatly influences water availability. The sandy soil can quickly be recharged with soil moisture but is unable to hold as much water as the soils with heavier textures. As texture becomes heavier, the wilting point increases because fine soils with narrow pore spacing hold water more tightly than soils with wide pore spacing.

Soil is a valuable resource that supports plant life, and water is an essential component of this system. Management decisions concerning types of crops to plant, plant populations, irrigation scheduling, and the amount of nitrogen fertilizer to apply depend on the amount of moisture that is available to the crop throughout the growing season. By understanding some physical characteristics of the soil, you can better define the strengths and weaknesses of different soil types.

The table and figures were originally published by the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

Anyway, getting back to the original topic... the massive tomato growing operation in Perth's North that utilised water from large ponds full of Silver Perch...

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western ... 6904171164

I think the houses kinda gave it away... I’ve gotta be honest, looking at the houses back then I suspected they might’ve had a “second” income... but me being from a hydroponic background I was thinking something different altogether...

There are two vids in the link above, the first is just the tv news story, the second is worth a look... it doesn't show the pond set-up, but does demonstrate the size of the project... the vid only shows about half the ground it covers.

like the lions on the gate lol.

apparently they supplied local woolies so tomato prices may rise.

If you want to do it all legally I think it could be quite practical.I had a friend growing trout on a large scale and he always had market gardeners chasing him for the waste water.I thought it would work if one did the fish and the other grew the vegies.