Aquaponics Anyone?

[Kitchen Chatters]

Hello, I recently watched some videos on Aquaponics and it seems like a really awesome way to grow organic produce and to raise fresh fish to eat.

I want to start by building my own system and starting small at first.

Does anyone here do Aquaponics?

Would love to hear from you.

Thanks

[CraigC]

I believe that here in the US, we refer to growing plants this way as hydroponics and aquaculture refers to fish and seafood. Hydroponics is very big for growing an herb that isn't completely legal here yet.

[larry_stewart]

There actually is an aquaponics( I just found out about it recently). It is a hydroponics element to it, but the water that is feeding the plants comes from a reserve that houses the fish. So its kind of a symbiotic relationship. The plants roots help filter out the water for the fish, and in turn the fish food, waste... feed the plants. A friend of a friend who teaches at a high school actually has a whole set up going for his students. I was supposed to go check it out, but things fell through , and the school year ended. Also, bringing strangers on to school property is not as easy as it used to be, so there was a security issue. I have another acquaintance who bought a simple ' at home ' kit for her kids to experiment with. It kinda fits over a fish tank, and grows a small variety of herbs. In either case, it was more for the veggies and not to harvest the fish, but Im sure there are much more elaborate systems that can do both.
It's actually kinda cool and in afterthought, makes a lot of sense since many fish waste contain a lot of nitrogen, which the plants love.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics

[Aunt Bea]

We have had a couple of aquaponic farms in this area that produce various types of lettuce and tilapia. At this point they are sort of a novelty and they seem to come and go or resurface under new names in new places. I think it would be a great way to "farm" urban areas.

This is one example.

Main Street Farms

[puffin3]

We have one of these operations locally.
I've tried the rainbow trout. They are clean tasting but the texture isn't so nice. (The fish do not get enough exercise IMO.) Even better taste than from some of our local lakes. The lettuce tastes like lettuce.
The cost of production (energy mostly) is in this case too high to make the operation financially profitable.
Hence the price for the trout and the lettuce is too high for the average person to consider.

[Kitchen Chatters]

Apparantly tilapia is the best fish to raise in these systems. One guy reckons he only feeds his tilapia scraps from his veggies wbich makes his system 100% self reliant.

Aquaponics is a mix of hydroponics and aquaculture.

I will show some pucs and keep you all updated on my progress.

Apparantly produce grows twice as fast and much bivger than conventjonal farming.

[Dawgluver]

Our local high school ag dept. also raises tilapia using aquaponics. Really interesting.

Looking forward to your pics and progress!

[taxlady]

I'm glad that people are actually doing this. I have been saying for years that someone should.

[snowbeast]

I've been looking at this, but I don't eat tilapia. Would love to see if I can do this with trout. I have wild trout in a stream at the bottom of the property I'm moving into in December.

[taxlady]

I don't eat tilapia because it is usually farmed under dubious conditions of sanitation and worker welfare. I would certainly give tilapia grown by aquaponics, in a country with decent labour standards, a try.

[GotGarlic]

I would, too, taxlady. I like tilapia, but stopped buying it when I found out how it's raised.

[medtran49]

In one of the rides in The Land in Epcot at Walt Disney World, they have a ride that goes thru a representation of their hydroponics and aquaculture. They have all kinds of veges growing and raise talapia, perhaps other fish too, it's been a while since we've been. It's pretty interesting.

[rodentraiser]

I want to raise shrimp if I ever get the room to do it. A lot of people already do this. The only problem that I foresee is that I'll feed the things, then name them, and get too attached to them to eat them.