Most efficient aquaponic system. (energy and other)

[Eric Warwick]

There are many types of systems such as chop and chift pist (both requiring media, that may not be that may not locally sourced and/or, are energy intensive) ;there are deep water culture systems, but they require swirl filters and ",lots" of oxygen; some, only, use use nft for aquaponic systems, but they also require swirl filters and are human intensive; combinations can be made such as Kobus's system (NFT Deep Water Culture Media) or, other combinations.  Now, I hope this turns into one of the hypothetical conversations, often seen on this forum, because that is the intent. Also please, correct me if I am incorrect.

[TCLynx]

As I see it, here are some of the main points about the different types of systems.

 

1-Media based, requires media and usually more pumping height and therefore a bit more power for the water pumping.  In general media based systems are fairly low maintenance and very appropriate for backyard gardening.  Media beds can grow just about every kind of plant big and small including root crops (though I'm not sure if peanuts would manage to peg well.)  Choice of media will greatly affect price or weight, one just needs to do their home work to avoid putting limestone gravel into their beds.  Flood and drain media may fluctuate temperatures more widely but they can run with minimal additional aeration if planned properly.

 

2-Deep Water Culture (DWC) or Raft systems, well Friendly Aquaponics is working at minimizing the power consumption of these systems if you are growing low density tilapia in particular in a cool tropical climate.  For very low density fish production minimal/no solids removal or additional filtration may be needed for very small systems but a small amount of water pumping and air pumping is always needed.  Raft culture is a bit more labor intensive in planting and harvesting and re-planting the rafts but if you are doing commercial it is actually beneficial since you might process an entire raft for market at a time.  DWC has the benefit of large masses of water to help stabilize system temperature and water quality.

 

3-NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) I would say this is the most maintenance intensive.  It is well suited to commercial operation except that the troughs don't lend as well to easy complete harvest and replanting quite as easily as in raft production (since it may not be as easy to move the whole trough to a work area.  NFT systems require rather good filtration for both solids and bio-filtration since the troughs don't provide much surface area for the bacteria (since it is only a thin film of water in the bottom of them) and solids would clog the roots and cause a stinky mess in the troughs.  Such separate filtration systems generally require very regular maintenance.  Also since the water in the troughs is very shallow it tends to heat up/chill down more in long runs and there fore it is not recommended to to very long runs of NFT trough.  The plumbing into and out of NFT troughs needs to be checked for flow/slogging regularly or you could loose a whole row of plants to drying out or overflow a trough and loose much system water.  Since NFT has little system water in the plant growing space there is generally less water mass in the entire system and therefore less stability to the system.  My personal impression of NFT for aquaponics is that it tends to be overly complex, technical, and energy/maintenance intensive.  Higher power pumps needed to force water through the filters and small plumbing out to the NFT pipes.  With solids being removed it requires more fish and feeding to provide for the same amount of plants so the fish tank tends to be more heavily stocked requiring more careful monitoring and more feed and aeration.

 

Now there is another type of system element that wasn't mentioned before Towers and among the towers, there are two different types.

A-Pocket towers with gravel or clay media that water trickles through.  These towers may have media in them but the trickling nature of the inflow and the media would tend to clog if heavily solids laden water were sent to them so I recommend filtered water be sent to these towers.  I see pocket towers as an add on for some other type of system and not necessarily able to be a stand alone system without any additional filtration for the system.

B-Zipgrow towers, these were specifically designed as aquaculture filters.  I've found that allowing the largest solids to settle before sending water to these towers can be helpful in keeping the plumbing clear but the media itself can handle the solids at an appropriate flow rate.  The Zipgrow towers can be a stand alone filtration/plant growing method in a CHOP mark two type set up.  The extra height needed to lift the water up to the towers is the only real extra energy expense and the main drawback being that you can't grow very large plants in the towers.

[Eric Warwick]

I also need to add, media tower systems: they are towers that are media based, basically multiple grow beds stacked one one top of each-other. gardenpool.org has a great example of this with there shelf-ponics system, http://gardenpool.org/?p=431shelf . I would like to know the benefits of this type of system, as an addition to a system, or a system. I'm going to start building one, would anyone else like to join the study. Come on we got herbs and lettuce!

[TCLynx]

The shelfponics looks like a nice way to start slow growing seeds or root cuttings perhaps but it seems way shallow for most things to me.  I'm rather partial to deep beds.

[Eric Warwick]

It doesn't have-to-be a shallow bed; they grew "lots-a" basil and lettuce in that shallow bed, too. I think if you have extra space and too many nitrates someone could attach this system as a alternate option to towers, towers being as cool as they are.

TCLynx said:

The shelfponics looks like a nice way to start slow growing seeds or root cuttings perhaps but it seems way shallow for most things to me.  I'm rather partial to deep beds.

[Kou]

Eric,

 

I really love the shelf system, but on a larger scale. 

[Carey Ma]

Hello Eric,

In my opinion there is no "most efficient system" out there. It all depends on what you are growing, natural conditions and what you want to accomplish/ limitations.

Off all the hydroponic systems, I would say aeroponics is the fastest method to grow, most nutrient efficient system available. The down side to aeroponics as it currently exists is that it 1. cost too much to set up as system and 2. there is a major problem with salts clogging the foggers. Next year I hope to be able to restart my experiment and devise this ultimate system.

 

There are other options as well, for example a greenwall could be built to block off some sunlight for lower light plants. I'll post some pics of a greenwall from last year.

 

Note: All verticle systems block the sun so spacing should be a consideration.

Most media based verticle pipe type systems have the problem of uneven water retention being too wet on the bottom and too dry on top, plus almost nothing can grow in the shade side.

 

Cheers

[Vlad Jovanovic]

 

Hi Eric, 

I have to agree with Carey Ma, in that it a lot depends on what you are growing, where, and what you hope to accomplish...For instance, Kobus's 'swiss-army knife, (not so) mad scientist' approach is wonderful. He seems to be pushing the envelope with what you can do with those type of systems. I'm sure that he is extracting much interesting data and gaining many valuable insights (much of which may fly in the face of  "traditional" aquaponic thinking) as to what you can accomplish with those systems. Whereas a commercial, or at least large family operator may have totally different motivations, (not to mention different parameters for "efficiency") and that will reflect on the type of system one operates...

I'm putting together a 'hybrid' system, so I hope to get the best of both worlds so to speak. If your interests aren't on raising the most amount of fish that you can, it would seem that pre-filtering the DWC troughs with worm laden media beds is the natural thing to do. I'm sure it will be far the most "efficient" aquaponic system, but again, that depends...

 

[Kobus Jooste]

I have to agree with many of the contributions here (if not all), arguing the case for different systems, scale and required crop / labour intensity / power consumption.  It is exactly bewcause of this though, that I am so passionate about mixed systems on a smaller scale.  When you are a commercial grower, you want to focus in a narrow pH / temperature / plant cycle band in order to streamline an operation and cater for a specific market.  I feel that in the past, community / home systems were simply a scaled down version of this design, in other words a "micro" unit that is typically still geared to a typical regime of production.  Media bed systems for me were the most versatile, but had cost and plant choice implications that I could not agree with.  I started developing a "whole basket" mentality, thinking that AP should be able to deliver a set of crops that satisfy a large amount of a person or communities' needs.  For that purpose, I am designing now.  I will have a system with NFT, towers, gravel media beds, a sand bed, filtered water and unfiltered water in a single unit before summer.  I am picturing systems that deliver all possible crops to a home owner or community.  I'm not sure if it will work on a commercial scale, but that is not my concern right now.  For improved efficiencies, I am looking towards 3 D "cube" design in stead of expansive 2D lay-outs, and at adding coarse spray nozzles to towers in order to increase the number of plants grown with the same amount of water.  In beds and NFT, I try to move water through at least 2 "growing structures" before it is returned to the fish tank. 

 

As many authors have pointed out, each method has a strength and a weakness.  I do not believe any one method can be a single card winner, thus I try to design with the strengths of as many methods as possible in mind.

[the mad german]

I myself have to agree with the majority on the efficiciency of 1 specific type of system. I believe a combo sytem has the most all around versatility. Its what I originally had in mind, but just wanted to get my feet wet before trying other applications.

With a multi use combo system you can specifically cater to the needs and requirements of each plants individuality.

My next sytem will probably be a horizontal tube, vertical tower, grow bed and mound system. Just like my current system I want it to be small and portable but macro in capabilities. But thats further down the road, next year I hoping to dig a pond with the thought of either feeding a large system or multiple test smaller units