Odor in Aquaponics

[B. Pearcy]

I have a friend that is very familar with farming of all types and when I was telling him my plan to build an aquaponic system in my backyard his first question was as follows:

 

Do you think the neighbors will be o.k. with the smell?

 

I have neighbors on each side of me. The houses are separated by about 20 feet in my subdivision. Is this a valid concern?

 

I really hadn't thought of that and I didn't know how to answer him. What better place to come for an answer than the Aquaponics Community.

[Sahib Punjabi]

Interesting...your friend mush have been around some unfiltered ponds where there were some dead & decomposing fish.

I have had a 1,000+ gal Koi & Goldfish pond in the front of my house (zero lot line) for over 10 years and a 500+ gal Koi & Goldfish pond at the back. My wife is very sensitive to any foul smell and honestly the only time that she complained to me was one hot summer evening when the pump had stopped working as I had been lazy in not cleaning the filters. The next day I did a thorough cleaning of the filters (Boy! were they clogged and full of fish stuff), and by the afternoon, no smell :-)

 

So the moral of the story is "keep your filters clean" and remove any dead fish / animals (sometimes I have found mice or or other small animals). Don't worry & good luck future Aquapon farmer :-)  

 

 

[Green Acre Aquaponics]

Yep, no worries about fishy odors.  We even compost our occasional dead fish in our compost and amazingly there is little to no smell. It seems that most fish odor from a dead fish or even fish parts from cleaning occurs when it is in a trash can or bag with no air for circulaton.  We were actually amazed that we could compost it with out any bad smells.  As far as the waste, removing it and placing it in a bucket will do the trick.  You can dilute it and give it to friends with ground gardens for fertilizer.  It is much too valuable really to just throw away.  It does have a pretty pungent odor, but even when applied to ground gardens dissapates within a day.  We have our pastures fertilized with an organic fertilizer made from fish emulsion and it is pretty strong when it is going down in the morning, but by the end of the day it is barely noticable.  The system itself should not have any odors coming from it, particularly if it is a small system with out a densly populated tank.  Even our commercial system with nearly 300 lbs of fish has barely any perceptible odor.  So good luck and again no worries!

[TCLynx]

If there is an odor then it means something is messed up and you need to sort it out quick.  Strongest odor I've ever noticed around my system has had nothing to do with the aquaponics and some freeky fungus growing up out of the ground and mulch.  Seriously, strongest aquaponic odors are from the fish food itself or the herbs and onions growing in the beds, no bad smells really.

 

And as to the composting, Definitely, anything that might normally stink if you put it in the garbage, you should definitely compost it!!!!  We only take the trash out about once every three weeks because anything that could rot or stink goes in the compost.  I will happily teach anyone who needs help how to get good hot compost that can handle all the normal composting "no-no's" like meat, oil, diary, dead fish, fish guts even whole chickens without stinking up the neighborhood.

[Green Acre Aquaponics]

Really!  You compost the no-no's!  I've never heard of that!  I have read where fish is the only animal product outside of eggs that should be composted, but meat, dairy, and whole chickens!  Wow!  Do tell!  PS. So you are a composting wiz too?!

[TCLynx]

I guess I'll have to start a separate composting Discussion here to avoid hijacking too far.

But I bow to Joseph Jenkins for writing the book that can teach anyone how to create hot active compost that can handle just about anything provided the pile is big enough to contain it adequately.  Gotta have lots of cover material on hand like straw or leaves though.