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Comment by Mehdi A. Satter on December 30, 2011 at 5:13pm

I'm a quadriplegic and unemployed since May 2009. Planning on starting an aquaponics farm to be independent financially. 

Through this forum I'm trying to reach out people for suggestion, advises, and mentoring.

Please let me know how can I start my small scale farm..

Happy new year.

Mehdi

Comment by Michael Welber on December 27, 2011 at 7:47am

Thanks to both of you. What you're saying sounds exactly right. 

Comment by TCLynx on December 27, 2011 at 7:41am

Well that is the whole point, the pee provides the ammonia source and you cycle up which means the bacteria convert the ammonia to nitrite then another type of bacteria convert the nitrite to nitrate which the plants would use.

Now there are other things in pee but there are lots of different bacteria that break things down and if you were to do a water change after you cycle up before you get your fish, you could remove most residues if you are really that worried about it, but like I said, if you are not taking anything too extreme, it will be quite dilute by the time you get fish.

Comment by Sheri Schmeckpeper on December 27, 2011 at 7:40am

Michael, once the system gets started and cycled, you'll be relying on your fish, right? So the amount of drug residuals you've added will be nominal. Also, if you do a few water changes, and you're very likely to do so, particularly during the cycling process, you'll pretty much eliminate any buildup.

Comment by Michael Welber on December 27, 2011 at 7:26am

It looks like antidepressants are the primary culprit and I'm not taking those, unless of course my new system flops. The ammonia in the urine in pee-ponics dissipates when the system kicks in so I wonder how much residue there would be once I add fish and plants. 

Comment by TCLynx on December 27, 2011 at 7:15am

Well you might want to research your particular pharmaceuticals and see if they are known to cause mutations in aquatic life.  I know here in FL there are issues with some big companies dumping waste and causing issues with fish and such but that has more to do with government allowing them to do it.

Comment by Michael Welber on December 27, 2011 at 7:09am

I'm not worried about residues in the food. However, I have read some scary stuff about fish and frog anomalies because of pharmaceuticals from sewage getting into ponds or rivers. I don't want three eyed fish with feet! 

Comment by TCLynx on December 27, 2011 at 7:03am

If you are on really strong pharmaceuticals, like chemo therapy or something else extreme, then I wouldn't do pee ponics.

Otherwise, keep in mind that what we ingest, we also excrete and what we flush will come back to haunt us anyway since sewage systems and septic tanks/leach fields simply put it back into the water supplies and hope that dilution will be a good enough solution to the pollution.  So there are already likely going to be some pharmaceuticals getting back into your water supplies that your fish will have to contend with.  You will just need to decide if your pharmaceuticals are too scary for you to mix them back into your system cycle up on a less diluted scale.  

 

Keep in mind, doing the pee ponic cycle up, you are not using a huge amount of urine to create the ammonia spike.  I cycled up a 600+ gallon system using less than a pint of pee per dose (and I was NOT dosing every day during the cycle up until the very end when I was dosing and then able to reach 0 ammonia and nitrite within 24 hours and that lasted only a few days till we went to get fish.)

What kind of pharmaceuticals and what kind of effects are you afraid of for the fish?  If you are simply worried about residues getting to your food, well if a small residue is going to hurt you, are you sure you want to be taking those medications in the first place?

Comment by Michael Welber on December 27, 2011 at 6:51am

I"m moving towards starting my system and read about using "pee-ponics" to create the ammonia. I'm concerned that pharmaceuticals in my body might have very negative effects on the fish. What do people think? 

Comment by TCLynx on December 20, 2011 at 4:14pm

Hard to know without seeing the diagram.

You say using pvc, in what way?  Like putting plants in the pipes?  If so, make sure you have filtration before the fish water goes to those plant pipes.  And if you crowd plants too close together they will fight for space even if they don't necessarily fight for nutrition.

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