Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Being that I'm cheap, thrifty,frugal I got to thinking about a self sufficient system and had an idea to compost and use worms in the process which I think would be beneficial to the AP system.

The AP is used to grow plants, leftover scraps can be used as composting material, worms break it down and breed in it which in turn creates a food supply for the fish who in turn break them down into waste which is used to fertilize the plants, pretty much a complete cycle.
Then the compost can be used for other plants in the garden and starting seedlings to go back into the AP system again

anyone else doing something similar ?

Lots of people Quad....

Try a search of the forum for "worms" composting" or "vermiculture"

Some of us skipped most of your steps and just put the compost worms straight into the GBs - worms are thriving on the fish poo and rotting roots etc...I am very careful of removing the old plants as I was finding worm capsules among the roots

...as Rope suggests, there is a few threads on use of compost worms in AP GB

I made the mistake of taking out a bunch of large tomato plants and replanting my growbeds with small seedlings. The roots of the tomatoes obviously died and plugged up the growbed. I had some worms in there but I added more and was disappointed to see that they hadn't cleaned up all the "mess" yet. When I looked closer, I found lots of worm capsules and tiny, threadsized worms. I'm guessing that the worms are having a population explosion but they haven't gotten big enough to eat very much yet. In a week or two it should be a different story.

Good to see you back Ems!!
Soon enough the work will be done!!

A little off-topic, but a good laugh...
from http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007 ... 120077.htm :


Toilet home 'may have traumatised' compost worms
Posted Sun Dec 16, 2007 5:12pm AEDT

A New Zealand inventor has been forced to defend the use of worms in a composting toilet he has developed after officials became concerned that the creatures might become traumatised by the procedure.

Coll Bell was told to get an expert's report on the mental impact on the tiger worms being used after an official became concerned during a site visit.

He says the official felt that the worms were being unfairly treated, being expected to deal with human faeces, and that it could affect them in a psychological way.

Mr Bell was told he had to get someone with the necessary qualifications to say the worms were happy.

A vermiculture consultant was called in and she has found the worms are in excellent health and breeding happily.

OMG

Animal ethics to the rescue.

my answer: 'NZ' all the really whacky news stories we get come from over there

Someone should have pointed out to the official that worms CHOOSE to live in manure piles!

It is important to use the right tool for the right job. The more specialised you make your tool, the more jobs you can't use it on without complications.
It would seem this man was the wrong tool for the job, but still definitely a tool.

yup that summs it up nicely i reccon LMAO

There was a story going around a "few" years ago about a young health official who inspected Bart Cummings stables (Bart is a thoroughbred horse trainer).

The official stated that there were too many flies in the stables, with which Bart quipped back "Well, if you let me know how many flies I am allowed to keep, then I'll get rid of the surplus"