if i could upvote this twice i would, this was a fucking wicked post. i myself have jsut got into playing with aquaponics last year and plan to do a larger scale set up this year, i liked hydro ponics but wanted to find a way to do it without using additives thus came the idea of aquaponics and raising pond fish to sell and cycling their water through the plants. ill be following you, maybe stop by my blog and see if theres anything of value for you on it, im cenetered around gardening aswell
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Thank you very much my friend!
Yeah I love aquaponics and probably would be doing it as well, but I really don't have anything to do with the fish, as being a Vegan, they are not really a food source for me.
The second issue I have with it, is the low tolerance for mistakes...its one thing to kill of some plants and completely a different feeling when you find 100 fish floating around in your tank just because the filter wasn't working properly.
Another thing is that aquaponics tend to require a bit more hands on approach, as often it is challenging to balance the water both for the plants and the fish, as the fish prefer the water to be a bit more alkaline (in the 7-7.5 PH range) while the plants prefer it more acidic (5.5-6 PH).
And the last thing being the iron deficiency in the fish crap ;) , they provide almost everything that the plants need, except iron...so you need to be adding at least that...
Followed you as well, hope to exchange more info in the future!
Im not vegan, but i dont like fish or eat fish lol taste like crap,, i raise koi, and goldfish for ponds for people with ornamental ponds in summer. i have a intersting hack for the iron that you might find strange but i simply anchor a couple real well rusted bolts in the outline from the tank, to the plants. the ph level isnt much of a issue and koi and goldfish are pretty versatile fish. maybe for speciality fish you would need to be more precise, but i honestly have never even tested my ph levels, i had goldfish and koi and a pond long before i got into gardening,,, my first test pilot was as simple as i built a plant bed next to my pond using a couple old feedin troughs from a farm and used a small fountain pump to pump the water up to them. never had a dead fish yet minus the ones neighbourhood stray cats have eaten on me haha
Yeah you right, at the end nature does it all day long, without any special additives involved...If the systems is balanced well then there is really no maintenance involved.
Never tried putting real iron inside the water, sounds like a solution that can work if not doesn't by accident poison the water ;)
Would be great to see some of the ponds you were building.
The iron idea came in to make the plants get extra iron and be lusher green, wasnt actually thought of because of the fish to be honest. and i got the idea from whats called the iron fish project, in africa in places where food was low in iron and stuff they made this little fish out of iron and called it the iron fish, it would get boiled in soups and stuff to add iron to them. strange concept for us to think of here since we dont have the problems those cultures do, so the ad for that gave me the idea of adding it to the water to make the plants greener. ... as for the fish, i dont think a little extra iron would hurt them, but it dont come back through anyways, what isnt used by the plants imediately dont make it back through the bed back to the water... in the plant bed i have the bottom lined with activated charcoal from aquarium set ups and then a layer of sand on top of it and a layer of gravel ontop of the sand that it filters through before dripping back into the pond. going to do similar for the ones i do with aquariums next year.
You know what that is not strange to me at all! Human ingenuity will always find ways to survive when there is one.
I remember my grandfather used to tell me that when he fought in the second world war they used to send them to the most remote places and often there were no supplies for weeks on...and that often they used to boil their army shoes that were made of leather, just to have that little protein dripping into the water...and that was their soup for the night with at least a little sustenance.
So yeah sometimes the "craziest" ideas can provide you with the best possible solution at hand .
Regarding your filters, looks like you really know what you are doing..the charcoal works magic for filtering anything...
Great job @ewasteguy1, perhaps you can share some images of the setup, I am curious to see
the set ups under several feet at the moment and up until joing steemit this last week i never took pictures of any of my stuff, never been much for taking pictures nor documenting things but thats about to change now that im apart of this site, i see it as a great oppurtunity to spread the message of sustainability and teach others to give it a try aswell as hopefully make some money in the process to invest towards my end goal of starting a recycling facilty / local greenhouses, i would love to see my small town not need goverment ran recycling companies, nor imported veggies.
Yeah it is definitely a good opportunity to take some photos! :)
I am sure there are many people that will be happy to see your work...I know I am...
I hope you will be able to proceed with your project, it always starts with small steps!
I am going to be making weekly curation posts on sustainability as part of Minnow Support Project so make sure to send me the post about the project once you get some writing...