Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Not sure Rupe - I don't know whether Gary's OS filters trickle the water or not. The towers run by many would seem to have a similar sort of effect though - as was pointed out by Hex in another thread. I think making a tickle filter to suit would be very easy - but ideally I will have the plants removing the nitrate. Will have a play sometime though. I'd want to make sure the design didn't increase evaporation too much. From my reading, the ones that work best are the ones that expose as much water surface area as possible to the atmosphere. This is likely to result in major evaporation, particulary in summer, in my view. Accordingly this may not be a good solution.

Yep, interesting as at one stage (may still) I thought of kind of letting the water just splash (into a funnel) feeding down into my towers, theory being that it might aid oxygenation.... heading down that road as I'm goiing to use towers as part of pre-filtration to an nft tray....

Thought about evaporation and wasn't so sure

Reading some of the google articles though it seems that many wet/dry trickle filters actually incorporate exactly that sort of forced oxygenation before entering the trickle filter....

Like I didn't have anything else to read..... LOL

I know what you mean. There are heaps of hits. Better to sleep I reckon.

Sleep tight aussies, it is morning here. Interesting discussion. If nitrates are reduced only by low oxygen bacteria then you need to run low o2 water to them. Mostly, I try to get all the o2 I can into my water. One big healthy tomatoe plant probably replaces some exotic slow drip filter for nitrate removal.

For the 'what is AP' question, all practical AP needs to have enough plants to benefit the fish by nitrate removal in significant quantities that the water recirculation can occur without continous addition of new water. I do not need an exact number but a measure of how AP you are might be how much makeup water is required. Gary takes water and nitrate out by the amount he is open loop, then replaces it with makeup water. Nothing wrong with that, but he is less AP than those that do not take water out.

I liked the point of view that 'if the fish are more important than the veggies, then grow veggies that can go back to the fish as feed - either directly or indirectly'. Or grow veggies and sell them to buy fish pellets. Basil fetches a pretty penny.

The more closed the system, the more AP I think of it.

If you are going to optimize for fish production, then fed them at the maximum growth rate, grow all the nitrate loving plants you can, monitor the nitrates, and replace water as required. That optimizes for fish, uses the plants you have, and compensates where needed by water replacement. I visited aquaculture facilities that uses straight flow thru water at fabulous rates (thousands of gallons per hour). Any recirc would save enormous amounts of water. Actually the water was not destroyed by running thru the aquaculture facility, but you could raise twice the fish with the same amount of water available if you could gain 50% by recirc (easy - maybe 10 times the fish by using 10% as much water).

Maybe in order to be AP the three parts of the system have to be significant to the balance of the system - if you took the potted plant out it wouldn't have an effect on the stability of the system. If you took the grow beds out of an AP system the fish would suffer (eventually). Like a three legged table that wouldn't stand with one leg removed?

Rereading the original post, maybe it has to do with all waste products being utilized for a benefit? You could do this by feeding the solids to worms then somehow using the worms or worm waste as an input to another living thing? I guess AP is a specific form of permaculture or recycling...

Dave, I like your concept. Each of the three legs need to contribute signifcantly or it is not 'practical' aquaponics.

Aquaponics to me (today) is using fish water to grow plants. The benifit of a closed loop system idealy is no water lost in raising fish because the plants filter it. I can now understand the open loop systems, they make sense as well. With constantly using the same water a build up occurs (I have read). What's my point? fish water grows plants=AP ....grin...

my opinion on AP can be summed up by these stolen paragraphs..............

Ahhh..... synergy...... right up there with paradigm shift .... ROLPML

yep suits well steve

And if something goes wrong, it damages more than just a few fish.

and as a group we learn the signs... if we share our experience.
C1

True. But folks have tried complete independence of the systems only to find the need to either waste water or have to add fertilizers. Certainly it has to be time to let nature work with us? Keep the balance!

Would introducing other organisms to produce the fish food be called "extended AP"?

BSF larvae, duckweed, rabbits, worms, pee...

If its natural it would be expanding the balance.