Aquaponics

[Skitarii]

Anyone tried it before? It's essentially small-scale fish farming that symbiotically interacts with hydroponic plant farms, recycling nutrients, exhanging microbes, etc.

What are your thoughts, and what would you recommend?

 

[Narcan Nimrod]

Cody's Lab has one of these systems. I don't know if he has a total front to back video on it, it's more in the background. Lots of focus on the substrate, Must be porous so your water doesn't cloud and kill the fish. I've seen basil in a couple hydroponics. No clue what works and what doesn't. Wood chips are awesome, like, orchid """soil""". it let's the water right to the roots. Back to cody's system, he drained the plant container on a timer. So the roots didn't rot ect. He just used an aquarium pump to circulate the water and clear rubbermaid bins to house the biomass. If you're red-neck engineering/ bruteforcing a solution? I would also recommend Leafy Street's self contained aquarium ("Real Ecosystem")

 

[el_4aba7]

Wanna make one. Found a couple of books on how to start that seem ok.

Spoiler

'King, Whelm_ Southern, Adrian - The aquaponic farmer _ a complete guide to building and operating a commercial aquaponic system-New Society Publishers (2019).pdf'

'Sylvia Bernstein - Aquaponic Gardening_ A Step-by-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together-New Society (2011).pdf'

 

[Yugica]

All I can say if you get into aquaponics, as someone who hasn't done any of this to grow food, is that you need to be careful with crayfish and snails. I used to grow cuttings for things in my aquarium but the snails eventually started eating everything that wasn't poisonous. They'd even rasp at the roots. Crayfish however do this in the wild lots and I've heard that they'll rip up roots and everything if left to their own devices a lot of the time.

I know rice farmers in Louisiana are able to grow rice and crayfish in their ponds, but not at the same time.

Also on crayfish you can remove their intestines by wiggling and pulling the middle tail fin. Roasting them apparently makes them taste more like lobster too.

 

[Blue Flying Leaf]

I don't know why people go thru all these technological loops and hoops when all it takes for food to grow is to put seeds in ground and for protein you go to chickens and eggs.

 

[Yugica]

I don't know why people go thru all these technological loops and hoops when all it takes for food to grow is to put seeds in ground and for protein you go to chickens and eggs.

It's an efficiency thing, I assume. It can increase how much food you can put out per square foot too if it's all done right. Chicken and fish are pretty on par from what I remember for the amount of feed given to the amount of meat produced too as a ratio, the only really lack the eggs. Some fish can even graze or eat plant matter, like certain kinds of catfishes or the pacu who's a relative of the piranha.

Also aquaponics system can get really cool. It tickles my 'tism in just the right ways.

 

[Free4Ever]

I don't know why people go thru all these technological loops and hoops when all it takes for food to grow is to put seeds in ground and for protein you go to chickens and eggs.

It's easy to purify water + nutrient mix relative to purifying dirt, so it provides a foothold for purifying a whole ecosystem - same thing for aeroponics, it's the same as aquaponics but with misted water. Basically you make clean compost with aquaponics and layer it onto the polluted soil repeatedly. This soil is then mire usable for animal or human consumption, and reduces the need to clean the soil by pulling the pollutants out with plants. It's probably not used like this yet, not at appreciable scale, but it's the most important application of aquaponics.

Fish / animals are not essential to aquaponics btw..

 

[Skitarii]

I don't know why people go thru all these technological loops and hoops when all it takes for food to grow is to put seeds in ground and for protein you go to chickens and eggs.

Because farming isn't as simple as "plant seed in ground"

 

[ParasiteSteve]

I don't know why people go thru all these technological loops and hoops when all it takes for food to grow is to put seeds in ground and for protein you go to chickens and eggs.

I worked on farms for many years as a young lad and a young man. You should stick to your concrete shit hole.

 

[Blue Flying Leaf]

Farming simulator doesn't count.

 

[Look--an Alien!]

If you really want to build an aquaponics system, read Aquaponic Gardening: A Step-by-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together by Sylvia Bernstein. It's available on Libgen if you don't want to drop the dosh.

I have extensive experience with aquaponics--I've tried deep water, dutch buckets, media beds; I've visited a local university and saw their own developments in hydro/aqua setups; I made a ton of stupid beginner mistakes that cost me around 80 fish (which was a hard pill to swallow)--I say all this so you know I've put in the work, so I know what I'm talking about...mostly.

The beauty of aquaponics is its scalability--if you want urban farming, you can bash together a functioning aquaponics system for next to nothing, using cast-off industrial components. It'll just be the cost of the pump and the fish (side note--I went fishing and used local catfish for my first system. Worked great, until my beginner stupidity killed them through ammonia poisoning). Lots of people use old IBC totes or 55 gallon plastic barrels--you will read online how they HAVE TO BE FOOD SAFE, but that is a convenience of the modern world. IBC totes are easy to clean when you cut them in half for an aqua system; I used glyphosate totes in my first system (I got them for free from a local mowing company) and they worked great for the the first year. If you thoroughly clean them, they work fine.

The research has already been done, and if you want to see the Golden Standard for aquaponics, check out the University of the Virgin Islands aquaponics setup they ran for years throughout the 90s and 00s--those champions made the system, worked out the kinks, published all the data for FREE (like good researchers do) so that any jackass (like me) can copy their work and make it happen.
https://uvi.edu/files/documents/Research_and_Public_Service/WRRI/UVIAquaponicSystem.pdf

If you want more info on the topic, there are several youtube channels that are highly informative and not full of worthless bullshit:
Rob Bob--https://www.youtube.com/@RobsAquaponics
New Agrarian (hasnt uploaded in years, but the old stuff is solid)--https://www.youtube.com/@NewAgrarian
Bigelow Brook Farm--guy is a legit genius--https://www.youtube.com/@Bigelowbrook
ZipGrow--the place to go if you want to the scientific principles and nitty gritty of aquaponics https://www.youtube.com/@ZipGrowInc

I don't know why people go thru all these technological loops and hoops when all it takes for food to grow is to put seeds in ground and for protein you go to chickens and eggs.

Because, my nigga, I live in the middle of the desert, where we got 2.5" of rain last year. Aquaponics is the most water efficient method of growing that humanity has developed thus far (drip irrigation has significant drawbacks). Aquaponics can be indoor, outdoor, small or large space, scaled for any form of production. Its not a "technological loop and hoop", it's the best thing to come out of agricultural development since John Deere's two cylinder poppin Johnny.

If any of you want to design a system, or have questions, feel free to ask. I've annoyed everyone I know with this stuff for years now, I doesn't bother me to sperg about fish and plants to strangers.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

I don't know why people go thru all these technological loops and hoops when all it takes for food to grow is to put seeds in ground and for protein you go to chickens and eggs.

It might shock you to know that water is another thing you need to grow both of those things. Considering most traditional agricultural techniques require a lot of water looking at alternatives for this scenario:

Because, my nigga, I live in the middle of the desert, where we got 2.5" of rain last year.

Is not the way to go watering crops on the daily. The benefit of Aquaponics is both having recyclable water that requires very little to replenish the system when the chemicals get wonky tonk; rather if the water chemistry gets wonky tonk. I know of a few Aussie Aquaponic farmers and American Aquaponic farmers that raise tilapia in essentially repurposed Dairy tanks. But really, you just need a large enough container for the school you're growing.

I did my own experiments with a gold fish tank and did a raft method of hydroponics/aquaponics; old school. Basically just used a buoyant material, I think I used closed cell foam from a computer package and cut holes for nylon mesh bags/pots. It worked well for a bit as a closed system then started to run into ammonia issues.I boiled down the failure of the ecosystem to overpopulation of gold fish. One of the few systems I find is easier to do at a bigger scale than a 20 gallon tank.

I've moved to just hydroponics to have more control over the water chemistry and am working on converting some conical fermenters into resevoirs for my balcony garden project.

 

[Look--an Alien!]

I did my own experiments with a gold fish tank and did a raft method of hydroponics/aquaponics; old school. Basically just used a buoyant material, I think I used closed cell foam from a computer package and cut holes for nylon mesh bags/pots. It worked well for a bit as a closed system then started to run into ammonia issues.I boiled down the failure of the ecosystem to overpopulation of gold fish. One of the few systems I find is easier to do at a bigger scale than a 20 gallon tank.

Ammonia is definitely the largest problem for beginner/smaller aquaponics users--there are several equations you can use to find out how many plants you can grow with your fish. It has to be in balance--enough plants to soak up the nitrate in the system, enough bacteria to convert the ammonia into nitrite/nitrate, enough oxygen in the system to support all the life you have, solids that need to be removed to avoid ammonia spikes--which may seem daunting at first, but with experience it gets easier.

But right on, my man, you can make any kind of hydro/aqua system out of junk that people throw away. A buddy of mine raises cattle/goats/sheep and used his old stock tanks for his fish. IBC totes are pretty much universal, and many companies throw them away since the old tanks fill their yards.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

Ammonia is definitely the largest problem for beginner/smaller aquaponics users--there are several equations you can use to find out how many plants you can grow with your fish. It has to be in balance--enough plants to soak up the nitrate in the system, enough bacteria to convert the ammonia into nitrite/nitrate, enough oxygen in the system to support all the life you have, solids that need to be removed to avoid ammonia spikes--which may seem daunting at first, but with experience it gets easier.

But right on, my man, you can make any kind of hydro/aqua system out of junk that people throw away. A buddy of mine raises cattle/goats/sheep and used his old stock tanks for his fish. IBC totes are pretty much universal, and many companies throw them away since the old tanks fill their yards.

Def. If I were to do the aquarium tank again, I'd probably introduce a prefilter for solid waste like a sump filter and then run the runoff back into the tank via an NFT style hydroponic system. I remember seeing a video on YouTube of an installer putting in an aquaponic system built into a bar top for an open kitchen. The Fish tank is below the bar and visible, sump was under the floor while the top had a reservoir where they would grow whatever greenery. I really wish I could find the video but Search on YouTube is next to useless.

Man, you bet yer ass I'd have an IBC system if I had the space for it. But it is as you say, this method can be done with just about anything. Hell, I've seen some commercial growers using essentially oversized kiddie pools. As long as you understand that the basic functions and mechanism of the tech you theoretically can do it anywhere. Just need water, nutrients at the extreme minimal limits and sometimes a medium to grow in like coir/perlite or expanded clay balls LECA, rockwhool, I haven't experimented with other inorganic/hard to break down "soil" like Sand yet.

 

[God's drunkest driver]

I have a conventional PVC pipe backyard NFT system with some in ground pond tubs I got for free on craigslist using spherical clay media. I have had Tilapia and Bluegill in it and by most estimates I could grow more plants in the system than I do but I have grown mostly herbs, strawberries, peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, lettuce (the last two have had issues with the heat). It's far from a sustenance level of growth and has more been a hobby for my wife and I. The biggest issue has been pest intrustion, honestly. With raccoons going after my fish and bugs going after my plants. The Bluegill came about because they're common and easy to catch after I lost some of my Tilapia. Bluegill are also hardier, but not great food.

 

[Yugica]

By the way if you guys want a raft system for growing things with aquaponics but don't want to use plastic then use perlite and cement. Sieve out your cement mix to remove any gravel and you can work out a specific gravity(relative density to water, it's equivalent to g/cc as a measure. e.g. 1 specific gravity = 1g/cc and 2 specific gravity = 2g/cc) that is under 1 and thus more buoyant than water. The official term for this kind of mixture is "perlite concrete" and it's normally used as a less strong form of concrete that's a better insulator of heat.

The density of expanded perlite, according to wikipedia is 0.03-0.15 g/cc. The density of cement is around 3.15 g/cc from what googling shows me. This means that using the most conservative estimate of the density of perlite(e.g. 0.15g/cc) in a 1:1 ratio will produce something with a density of 1.65g/cc, whilst having at least a 3:1 ratio will make it float on water at a 3:1 ratio. If we go with the less conservative estimates then you still need around a 3:1 ratio.

If you want your plants to stay above water though then you either need a large raft or to go with a larger ratio of perlite to cement. This site has a list of the material strengths for this kind of concrete too at various ratios. They went all the way up to an 8:1 ratio of perlite to cement.

An additional note is that the stuff gets more brittle and will flake bits off(from my own experiment) if you have a greater deal of perlite in your mix. One way to address this is to have a thin layer of regular cement wrapped around the whole of it. You should do this before curing, as it'll be strong and bond better this way. Because wet cement can be quite stiff you can have a mold(slick it with oil, canola oil worked best in my tests for keeping it from sticking to the sides) where you line the whole inside with that thin layer of cement and then you fill it in with a high perlite mix, with a little tunnel for your plants to grow through that you then line with cement. Then finally cover the top with cement and once it all cures it should be resistant to flaking or chipping.

Also with smaller scale stuff like this, "artisan sand" as I've heard it called in this one Practical Engineering video(it's hand smashed rocks for very coarse sand grains), can make a very strong cement/concrete compared to the normal sand used. The tradeoff is that the concrete is stiffer and harder to work. For something so small scale that is actually a plus as it'll keep its shape easier and you can easily push and press it.

I looked into all of this for aquariums, more specifically to both lighten the total density of an concrete decorations I would make or to make little floating rocks/islands. I can confirm that this stuff will float, although perlite left on its own in an aquarium will get infiltrated by some water and so the density of the final raft may end up being higher(also from my testing). One way to select for perlite that won't take on too much water is to leave it submerged, like in a bucket with a weight on top of it, for months(it does take that long for a lot of it) to see which bits of perlite got infiltrated.

 

[Yugica]

The biggest issue has been pest intrustion, honestly. With raccoons going after my fish and bugs going after my plants.

For the bugs, certain kinds of plants will ward them off. Various kinds of spice/herbal plants and even some ornamental plants secrete oils/resins that harm insects or just discourage them from wanting to get near. It may help a little bit with the raccoons but I have no good advice for them beyond that. These kinds of plant buddies are known as companion plants and there's a whole variety of them out there. Wikipedia has a list of stuff to check out and I'm sure there's more online to find.

Also if you can identify the specific bugs that are the problem then that'll help too. You can use inaturalist just to find similar looking bugs in your area, or even post pictures of them(it does geotag as it's meant to be a crowdsourced thing for conservation and research too) for people to ID for you.

 

[a hapless toad]

Sieve out your cement mix to remove any gravel

Bro why would you do this rather than just buying Portland cement and sand? A 94# sack of Portland is $15 and a 60# sack of sharp sand is $5. You get twice/three times as much raw material for the price, you can really dial in your ratios since you're the one in control of your aggregate, and you don't have to sieve anything.

 

[Yugica]

Bro why would you do this rather than just buying Portland cement and sand? A 94# sack of Portland is $15 and a 60# sack of sharp sand is $5. You get twice/three times as much raw material for the price, you can really dial in your ratios since you're the one in control of your aggregate, and you don't have to sieve anything.

All that my hardware store had was, unfortunately, premixed bags. I'll keep that all in mind and see if I can't order it or if I can find that out of town.

 

[a hapless toad]

All that my hardware store had was, unfortunately, premixed bags. I'll keep that all in mind and see if I can't order it or if I can find that out of town.

Been there, fren. Check to see if you have any building supply places in town.

Also if you have to sieve concrete again, remember that while you've filtered the gravel out there's still a large proportion of sand in the mix that will affect everything if not accounted for.

(Sorry, I'm a bit of a sperg when it comes to perlcrete.)