Aquaponics?
by John
(Australia)
Have you ever ventured into the awesome world of aquaponics? You've probably heard of it/got a system yourself, but if not it's just like hydroponics except you use fish which provide the nutrients the plants need.
I currently have a small setup using the flood and drain setup with every part bought from a hardware shop (minus air pump and air stones for fish - hydroton was available at the hardware store).
All I've used is: Fish tank 160 liters - so a very small system. Grow beds 30cm deep. 550 liter per hour submersible pump (with a filter sponge thing). Hydroton expanded clay as growing medium
home made siphon system using just hosepipe (I'm about to put in proper siphon system because I found the roots of the plants would grow into the hose causing it to block up!). Air pump with air stones for the fish. Fish are just some goldfish from a pet store.
Bacteria which grows naturally over time converts the fish waste into nutrients the plants use. A better aquaponics method is the nutrient film technique, which has better results than flood n drain.
Yes, I'm thinking about building a hydroponic system; however, I can't justify the cost of nutrients ($50/bottle in Australia from most places). I would grow outside, of course.
Answer: John- I have read about aquaponics a few times, but I have never tried it myself. One time I got on a survivalist kick and was researching this idea quite a bit....I got my hands on some report that was sold in the back of "Popular Science" back in 1982. It described how a couple of professors were trying to raise a pool of Tilapia and using the waste water to grow a garden of lettuce.
In a survival situation, it would sure come in handy....a source of protein, fresh veggies, and very little worries about where to get the fertilizer from. The biggest problem the guys had was getting the two systems to work in balance with each other. The fish waste was a little on the weak side as a fertilizer, so they chose to grow crops that required less fertilizer strength (ie the lettuce).
They were using a re-circulating system, so adding more fertilizer wasn't an option for them (as higher levels of Nitrogen began to harm the fish). It's been a while since I read the article, but I believe they had a small issue with keeping the pH in balance also....for anyone who has ever grown with hydroponics, this would be a very small problem to overcome.
I suppose if you were going to grow something a little more nutrient intensive, like corn, you would not be able to re-circulate the nutrient solution. Instead, you would probably filter off whatever fish waste you could than add some fertilizer to it. Since the nutrient would be given to the corn in a non-recirculating type system, you would need to replenish the water in the fish tank with a fresh source.
The whole system would be a little more water intensive at that point, but you would still be saving money on fertilizer (especially if you were making your own compost or vermi-compost for the additional fertilizer). Plus, you get to eat the fish!
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AffordableGarden Design&Setup
Hi everyone, Jason from Jason's Indoor Guide here. When I got started with hydroponic gardening more than 24 years ago, my first garden used rockwool cubes and B.C. Nutrients....and I remember thinking to myself yeah, sure, there may be a lot of advantages to gardening with hydroponics, for example there are very few pest problems, therefore very little pest control, no weeding, no plowing or tilling the soil, no soil testing or having to add things into the garden soil, no watering the garden....but for someone who just wants to grow their own vegetables and have more control over their food supply and the quality of the food that they eat, the cost of constantly having to buy grow media and hydroponic nutrients makes this an expensive hobby for most people...
Epic Nutrient Change
I suppose when you take into consideration how much money you save NOT
having to buy food at the grocery store, it is surely cheaper to grow
your own food hydroponically even with the cost of high quality
nutrients. Nevertheless, I didn't have a whole lot of money to work with
and I needed to make my efforts as affordable and effective as
possible....and in the last 24 years I HAVE learned a thing or two!
As you browse through Jason's Indoor Guide, you will notice all of the
systems that I use personally are homemade systems. As I got 3 or 4
years of experience under my belt, I quickly adopted a preference to
standing water systems and systems that use expanded clay pellets or
lava rock, because the media is re-usable and it eliminates a huge
operating expense. So once a hydroponic system is built, garden
maintenance is minimal- check and adjust the nutrient solution daily,
and to change it completely every 2 weeks....and the biggest operating
cost is the hydroponic nutrients. (and the electric bill, lol)...
Homemade Cloner
And, regarding the cost of the nutrients....I experimented for about 3 years with making different compost teas and nutrient teas, but there is still a lot of expense $$$ associated with making high quality nutrient teas....like kelp meal, liquid seaweed, rock dust, bat guano, un-Sulfured molasses, worm castings. You can eliminate a lot of this expense by becoming an expert at making high-quality colloidal humus compost, and use your properly made compost as the basis of your hydroponic nutrient solution.
Unfortunately, I have been gardening for over 24 years and I have only
just recently mastered this difficult skill....and even then, only
because I happened to find a very easy to follow, high quality technique
and decided to follow the instructions to the letter. I produced more
high quality compost in just one week than I was able to use in a whole
year! If you can master the technique, I highly recommend it. It is one of the top 3 things you can do to
increase the productivity of your food production efforts, while at the
same time decreasing the amount of effort required to grow all of your
own food, and decreasing the total cost of operating your food
production system.
And when I say decrease operating costs, I mean decrease them to almost
ZERO, especially if you are producing your own nutrients...
High Efficiency
Hydroponics
The ultimate solution to eliminate the cost of your hydroponic nutrients: Imagine a hydroponic system that does not require you to buy any nutrients, does not require you to make your own compost, and does not require you to brew your own nutrient tea. Seriously! No cost and no effort as far as providing nutrients to your plants! Plus, at the end of the gardening cycle you harvest all of your garden vegetables, PLUS YOU HARVEST FISH from the system--->
Aquaponics
This solution is aquaponics. If you are serious about producing all of your own food and being self-sufficient, this is the ultimate solution for reducing expenses (as much as possible), reducing the total amount of work required, and maximizing the productivity of your gardening efforts. I have been gardening for over 24 years, and it is the perfect food production solution in my opinion.
Besides mastering how to make high quality compost, learning aquaponics is one of the top 3 things you can do to increase your garden productivity, reduce your total costs, and reduce your total work. The product that I learned from is called Aquaponics4you. With all of my hydroponic gardening experience, the first time I came across the Aquaponics4you product I knew immediately that it was something very special! Place an aquaponics system outdoors and use the sun instead of grow lights, and you have reduced every garden expense to nearly ZERO!
The Same System/ 10 Weeks Later!
