Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well said Joel, that is the head of the nail right there. One thing you linked is the viability of AP to increase as environmental and energy costs increase. This is exactly what we are trying to accomplish is viability so when that day comes, and in some regions it is already here/there, we will be ready with a solution. There are places where the soil is toxic or of no value, arid, rocky, etc. and regions that have zero access to electrical. There are fertile regions that are exploited for water resources and local demand is questioning the traditional agricultural practices.

Man I need to get to work on my system.

I have been reading this thread with interest as so many of the comments relevant to AP apply equally to hydroponics. When we started out on the hydro. route 5 years ago we could not get any information from commercial growers in this country as they played everything very close to the chest as though we were going to put them out of business. Huh!.
We read books,bought videos,got on line and learned a bit then put it into practice. If you look at our website you can see how we progressed and we are still progressing. We have been experimenting with Ap for 2 years looking at where best to set up the system, whether it is better in full sun,half shade,full shade,watching water quality,feeding fish,"killing fish", (it happens) and a whole host of other factors needed to fulfill the learning process. We are ready now to step up the process and we have applied for building permission to erect a barn/shed which will ber solely for the development of AP.
As for commercial aspects. You need to start small and when you upgrade it will cost money and it will be a while before the dough comes back in maybe five or ten years to recover. There are people out there who will back you financially if you can justify what you are doing.
What we did with hydro. was to interest a business promotion group to back us then we ran open days to get potential growers interested. Identified the best potential,trained them and set them up with hydro channels etc.(They had to put up some of the capital) They now grow a range of lettuce leaves,pak choi,mustard leaves,strawberries etc. ,all hydroponically.These are picked up from them twice a week and delivered within 6 hours of harvest to local shops and hotels. It is early days yet and there will no doubt be complaints and cockups but we are enthusiastic it will work.
We , that is the wife and myself, are going to make the AP work as we have the hydro.experience and the market outlets.As I am 63 years old I have got to get on with it before I end up as fish food.
God bless this site as it will teach me so much and every comment you make is worth its weight in gold to someone learning the business.

hear hear wd.

WD, you brought up a very good point about the closed network so many people have set up to prevent competition. What they do not realize is that for every ten inquiries they get, less than half will ever try to do anything, and of those less than half of them will ever get to point of being a competitor. (Of course the market will also weed out those who are capable of competing and those who can not.)

To me the idea of AP as a means towards supplying yourself with quality foods is easily viable. Supplying a large enough and steady supply for marketing is a bit more difficult due to the size of the operation and the amount of time and money it will take to do so, but it can be done. The biggest bite for those trying to jump the hurdle into commercial operations is marketing. If your produce is not percieved to be of at least equal, if not superior, quality to that currently available than you will not be successful.

Kevin

Really interesting thread

I was havin a coffee with a friend today who used to run a top class fish restuarant here in perth , and trying to explain to him "what all those pipes and buckets" in the yard were for . needless to say , coffee lasted for 3 hours ( was only interrupted when we came home to find a druggie on my roof , yelling at the sky after jumping fences with a stolen nintendo , had to go inside & call the cops ) .

Im in the process of startign to setup a 10,000 litre pond system ( yeah , its gonna take a year or two knowing me ) , now im thinking I could stock it with perch or something & sell live to all the chinese restuarants around here ...

stocking levels of a 1:1 water to GB system ?
My mate was saying live perch or similar goes for 5 bucks a kilo around here , but I dunno , he's been out of the fish game a good few years now . Maybe I'll be trying to sell the fish rather than eat it to test the market , hehe

hmmm . or maybe an aquaponic vinyard ? damn , theres one to keep me awake all night designing