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Comment by Kim Romen on December 30, 2013 at 10:25am

Bob, For a newby like me who has been trying to consider the best, most economical, but beautiful way to add on to my system, along with looking at maintenance... your insight is interesting.  Sounds like u're saying that fertilizing with fish poop isn't necessarily as cost effective as with worm tea castings and other means.  As far as ease of maintenance, I guess that may be a different story.  I was just looking at the tower garden (not the garden tower through juice plus).  the tower garden has a worm bin in the middle of it to replenish the soil and the water is reusable, but in a manual way as it falls out the bottom in a bucket and can be poured back into the top of the tower.  I guess even systems like this could be hooked up to run on their own and even aguaponically.  In the end I keep coming back to AP when I think I'm going to veer off into a different direction.  Sometimes I think my priorities are 1. healthy food 2. inexpensive 3. easy but I'm realizing how much the "awsomeness" of the who eco-system is what keeps me wanting to add on to AP instead of veering off to other ways of gardening.  

I think I see what u mean by the romantic idea of eating backyard fish at home...  although I'm still intrigued by the possibility of having the whole system be more self-sustainable where my chickens eat plants that are grown in their area, maybe they feed the fish, maybe it's by means of other fish food (algae)...  (the gardenpool way I suppose).  That part seems much more complicated for sure. 

Anyway, thx for your input.  I still think I'll be cautious about overfeeding the fish but I can see how the pellets seem to take hours to disinegrate so it might not cause as much harm as I think it does?  Although I can also see bits of things (poop I guess?) floating throughout the water so I wonder how clean my water is afterall...  Time to check the levels.  I notice that in the cold I don't like AP so much but in the nice weather when I can enjoy it more I like it.  We'll see how much I like it in the summer!  :)

Comment by Bob Campbell on December 29, 2013 at 11:03am

@Dr. Brooks -

The focus in aquaponics is plants.  The focus in aquaculture is fish. Here are the some reasons I say we can throw out the old ideas from aquaculture.

We keep our water temperature where the plants like it rather than where the fish would thrive.  We use several tons of rock to nitrify excrement and excess food rather than a few pounds of Kaldness.  Generally our capacity to convert ammonia far exceeds the standards for aquaculture.   We don't use UV filters nor do we salt our water as freely as in aquaculture. 

Aquaponics will look at the energy used to pump, light, and oxygenate a system in terms of vegetable production first and let the fish survive in whatever condition this leaves them in. Generally that's a pretty good condition, but when the economics of a system are important we will harvest our fish before they mature, or torture them for several months over winter in cold water.  An aquaculturist would have placed the well being of the fish first and in many cases they rely on getting a higher price for ornamental fish.  If ornamental fish were more hardy, breed better and were also eatable this might be an alternative, but aquaponics is generally about food not pretty fish.

Aquaponics pays attention to stocking density for the sake of nitrate production and the food fed to fish does double duty as fertilizer and sustenance for fish. In fact we strive for higher nitrate levels and some of us have even been known to piss in our sump tanks to create more nitrates. Aquaculturist often flush nitrates and phosphates away.

 

There are probably more examples of different rules for AP and aquaculture.  We have basically found a productive way to use the waste products of aquaculture to offset it's high cost.

Forgive me but I'd now like to go off topic

Aquaponics found a use for the waste but then vegetable production became the priority, causing many to rethink the entire process and determined that the fish are more trouble and added expense than they are worth after discovering that other waste such as weed teas or urine also provide nutrients at a much lower cost than fish food. 

For most people the aquaculture part of aquaponics is still a net loss that ends up being sustained by our wish to provide high quality protein or because of some romantic ideas about raising fish in our backyards.  After all - on average about 400 gallons of fossil fuel are used to feed each of us. 200 gallons of that is used to transport food around the world and to create inorganic fertilizers. The rest is used by farm machinery.  But due to climate conditions it is still not a good economical choice for most locals even after cutting out the long distance shipping.  Looking at the reasons for this loss have led a few to produce their own food, but the majority of aquapons are still buying very expensive fertilizer/fish food.  

We all want to cut our use of fossil fuel, but few consider the fossil fuels used to create commercial fish food.  We can look the other way, but most of us have not gone far enough towards cutting the waste out of aquaculture.  

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on December 28, 2013 at 9:18pm

Hi Bob.  Would you elaborate on your comment, "You can throw out a lot of the old ideas than come from aquaculture?" 

Comment by Bob Campbell on December 28, 2013 at 7:19pm

Kim it's OK to over feed your fish in an aquaponic system.  It's also OK to pee in the tank.  You can throw out a lot of the old ideas than come from aquaculture. 

Comment by Kim Romen on December 28, 2013 at 2:31pm

Robert and Matt, thx!  i must've had my system for a couple of mths now and didn't even give them enough pellets for how many fish I have most days.  the food sat for more than 5 minutes more than once and then I got used to barely feeding them.  I'm not sure how much the big ones eat since they seem more cautious and scared of me.

that's gotta be true about the intuition that i'll figure it out after a while. 

Comment by Matt Miskinnis on December 28, 2013 at 10:08am

Fish can go a long time without eating, and depending on the water temp can make a difference - if it's cold Tilapia wont each much, if it's warm they will eat up everything.  I have both goldfish and Tilapia in my tank, the gold fish are eating much more than the Tilapia right now I just throw in half a handful maybe twice a day.  

Comment by Robert Rowe on December 28, 2013 at 9:09am

Kim   If you only feed them what they will consume in 5 minutes, there is no guessing, before long intuition takes over.

As to getting fish out, pump water out to a reservoir until you can access the fish, then pump it back in.  

Comment by Kim Romen on December 27, 2013 at 10:15pm

Jim, might be worth it if i could see inside. i'm convinced i starved the fish.  today i must've fed them 30 xs what i usually feed them. anyone have an idea of how much you're feeding your fish right now?  thx, Jim!  I'm gonna put this on my list of things I may want to add to the system.

Comment by Jim Troyer on December 27, 2013 at 10:41am

@ Kim:

You could always put a polycarbonate window in your tank Kim!

Comment by Kim Romen on December 26, 2013 at 6:03pm

I just pulled one out yesterday.  interesting to only have one die, not my smallest, not my largest.  i don't know how long it's been in there, either.  there's gotta be a better way to see inside my tank.  it's open only 1/3 of the way.  the way the sun shines, even with a flashlight it's really hard to see in the tank.  anyone have a solution to this problem?  i'd love to be able to see the fish more than i do!

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