I bought my three Rubber Maid tanks Friday ($238) and began looking for plumbing parts. Also cleaned the tanks today and moved them into position in basement.  Have old steel storage rack that I am going to modify to put the grow bed above the sump tank. 

I am not surprised at how many people have never heard about "Aquaponics."  Up until about a year ago, I was running on a nearly parallel path until I decided to look online and see if anyone else was doing something like this. As I mentioned before, many of you have done much of the leg work and I am now catching up to speed.  But I am surprised at the wariness and stigma that many have of hydroponics, therefore, aquaponics by association. So I am doing a little project to see if I…

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” 

― Aldo…

“I’d put my money on solar energy…I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”

~Thomas Edison, in conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, March 1931

Now found local sources for most of the parts I need to start building the system, so it's starting to get serious now. Will start by buying the Rubbermaid Ag tanks: one 100 gal, two 50 gal... with option to add 2nd grow bed in future.  I'll keep you all posted.

It has been a very interesting week.  Meeting people, sharing ideas, and finding the scope of a successful business model.  Meeting and talking with Carey Ma generated many ideas in developing marketable products for this economy.  Talking with a potential client has developed new ideas for marketing and visibility that I hadn't explored.  Showing an engineer friend my steam engine has invigorated my plans for reproduction and acquired his professional help.  Not a great deal of progress on…

Most people interested in commercial aquaponics invariably start looking at potential yields of different crops and then, after a thorough literature search, will discover that there is very little available in terms of potential yields of larger crops.  Stuff like basil, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers etc. seem to be written about the most.

With the advent of what I consider to be the most likely design for my own use in a commercial environment, namely gravel beds and…

Sorry my English is not good
But I will use google translator
I will do our best to give explanation to share my understanding

I am new to hydroponics and aquaponics. I've supervised drilling of six water wells and designed/ built various water storage and delivery systems in the 60psi/ 60gpm range. I have also built fountains of many kinds. The koi ponds I have built used about 2 yards of 3/4" crushed gravel as a biofilter, as well as a sand filter. The gravel is removed, washed, and replaced annually at considerable effort.(which I am no longer involved with!) I am very interested in the incorporation of…

Hello everyone my name is Jacob and I am a highschool student interested in aquaponics. Last year I wrote a grant to help start-up my aquaponics system. I am now going to start the system next week. I am liking the site here for it offers really great information from people whom have working aquapinic systems.

Thanks,

Jacob Toetz

Hello All,

I found Dinoflagellate & Coral work together to fix nitrogen in water for plants.  However, it live mostly in salt water conditions.  Cyanobacteria is one of the first bacteria to fix nitrogen, but it needs at least three things for it to grow, decay of organic material, bicarbonates in the water and light.  If we wanted to reduce the number of fish in our tanks, it is possible to have the fish eat some of the Cyanobacteria (its close relative…

These floating equipment of my own development, and manufacturing sales in Taiwan10 years

http://www.goch.com.tw/index.php3

Broccoli and cauliflower are starting to take off with this fall weather after languishing under a source of nutrients from goldfish only. I have a 2lb bass in the fish-tank now and I've moved the goldfish to a cushy indoor aquarium to thank them for their service. The smallmouth was ticked off for a while and wouldn't eat until I gave him his own 85 gallon tank. Now he…

The previous post explains in overview what I have been trying to accomplish.  I want an economical, sustainable, and self-contained system.  Not only food production but heating and powering my home and business as well.

The greenhouse/aquaponics unit is my experiment and will eventually tie into everything on my property.  The biomass boiler will provide steam that will be plumbed to all buildings (just like they did in the old days) for heat, and will be intermittantly…

I tried to write this out once but it sounded a little preachy so I removed it. So, here it is again....

My project started originally with aquaculture about 6 or 7 years ago.  I wanted to be able to raise my own fish in a pond that I have on my property.  I was having trouble with filtration.  I visited a facility called the "Living Machine," (I posted a diagram a few weeks ago.) Anyway, I dug another pond that I was going to put a greenhouse over and try using the water to…

Time for all the plant experts to wade in please!  I have been tinkering with a number of different media-less / media filled growing configurations of late.  The ones that interested me the most in the end was partly filtered versus “dirty” NFT.  The reason why this has become interesting for me relates back to the type of technology that is required to run these.  Should there be some way of making “dirty” NFT work, then there should be an advantage in trying to understand what I am…