Self Sustaining Aquaponics

[Harold Sukhbir]

This topic was started due to the prompting of Kobus and TC Lynx. Aquaponics as it is, relies on high quality fish feed as the main nutrient source for fish and plant production. As we all know fish feed was developed mostly for farmed fish(aquaculture), and while we use it out of necessity today, we are becoming increasingly aware of its limit for the long term. Fish feed production, utilizing aquatic animals is simply not sustainable, and i believe it is a science like AP which will create overwhelming demand for a land produced equivalent to this, in the likes of Duckweed, BSLF, Red worms, Amino Acid producing algae. In the near future AP operations will call on the operator, be it backyard or commercial, to learn to produce his own feed and develop his own self sustaining AP. This information gives the operator the freedom to feed his AP with the inputs of his choosing, toward growing healthy fish and vegetables.

Apart from AP, the growing of duckweed, algae, worms etc. are disciplines within themselves and warrant separate discussion on the formulas, techniques and skills needed to successfully produce them. So how does each of us do it?.............................

[Kobus Jooste]

Allisyn - if the mullet you refer to is the same thing that we call "mullet" in South Africa, then it has a marine pelagic life cycle from egg to fingerling and may not be so easy to breed.  I think the simplest feeder fish is to stick with stuff that are feeder fish in the wild and therefore breed like rabbits.  If guppies are too pretty you can go for mosquito fish?

 

TCLynx - I do not think that a fully sustainable operation will be a small backyard unit.  I think, in the end, such an operation will be medium to large in size - perhaps at least a 300 m square footprint?

[Allisyn Wood]

What about fresh water shrimp or krill? 

 

Again, I don't know a thing about raising them, just throwing ideas out there for those with much more experience and knowledge than I have...

[Allisyn Wood]

I am not sure what your mullet are.  I know that here, in Florida, they are actually a bait fish you can catch via cast net (or buy at the bait shop) and use on the end of a hook to catch the bigger guys.  I think these might be our local wild feeder fish (among other species).  They're seriously, like the cockroach of the waterway.  They're everywhere.  Best when fried.

Kobus Jooste said:

Allisyn - if the mullet you refer to is the same thing that we call "mullet" in South Africa, then it has a marine pelagic life cycle from egg to fingerling and may not be so easy to breed.  I think the simplest feeder fish is to stick with stuff that are feeder fish in the wild and therefore breed like rabbits.  If guppies are too pretty you can go for mosquito fish?

 

TCLynx - I do not think that a fully sustainable operation will be a small backyard unit.  I think, in the end, such an operation will be medium to large in size - perhaps at least a 300 m square footprint?

[TCLynx]

I'm thinking of growing some cherry shrimp and/or ghost shrimp to be not only clean up crew since they eat detritus but also as feed for catfish/bluegill.

 

[Carey Ma]

Rachel- How did you get an endless supply of guppies? Are they wild or just a fish tank that got out of hand? How are they fed?

I have several 50 gallon tanks I leave out in the shade to raise mosquito larva for my guppies but that is still hardly enough to raise enough guppies to use as an exclusive feed

 

Sahib- I agree. I too believe that AP is only part of a bigger picture if we are truly trying to be sustainable.

 

Personally, I do not like the idea of using natural resources like lakes, rivers or ponds to raise fish either for food or as feed. I think these places (system functions) should be aloud to naturally restore themselves. I believe in trying to close our food web loop and control the nutrient flow in a controllable environment for food production and AP offers just that at a basic level. Home units can use solider fly larva produced by that same refuse you spoke of instead of tossing it into the lake/ pond.

 

Gina- whenever we set our mind to make something in the wild become of value (commercial), we seem to manage throw nature off balance so this probably wont work in a commercial operation as far as sustainability is concerned.

 

As to replicating nature(‘s essential process streams) in a bubble: I think it is very much possible, just not very particle, especially in small scales. It may take two people, their full time effort to raise enough feeders for food

 

Allisyn- I agree with you. Whether for feed or food, I want my food’s feed to be varied (bio diversity) to include all manner of vitamins, minerals, fats, and proteins from varied sources to produce the healthiest, happiest produce and livestock possible but I would try desperately to refrain from lending my hand to destroying another species.

 

TC LYNX- It’s a matter of conversion ratios, nutrition balance and the time effort it takes to raise different types of feed. Unlike factory farming/ mono cropping (which AP still is a type of), the concept of farmscaping (Planned/ designed farms), already includes bio diversity as the basis. In my plan I have broken down nutrient usage and nutrient input into six levels each with clean water being the middle product. On my farm, EVERYTHING is for sale or eaten (by something). There is no waste, in fact I desperately need more input to replenish the nutrients lost through our restaurant and CSA program. Anyway the point is that on the fifth level of my nutrient input level are crusteations followed by snails.

 

(I hope you all can see this)

I know I'm a stubborn fanatic and extremist. I grow/ raise the best food I can manage for the kids at our orphanage, the staff and myself with the goal of surplus to sell; (http://www.specialcommune.org/). 

 

That's why I like this topic so much. As I said earlier, the key to sustainability I believe is bio diversity. AP is much better than hydroponics or aquaculture alone but only a part of the whole picture.

[TCLynx]

Very nice Carey.  I like it.  How much of it is already in place and functioning and how much is yet to be implemented?

Yes, when you sell anything out you then need to add materials back.  My "yard" kinda hard to call it a farm when it is only a residential 1/3rd acre takes huge amounts of what others think of as organic wastes and yet we can always seem to find a need for more and we are really not "selling" anything out and we still are needing to bring in feed and materials for compost.

 

How do you avoid having the mosquitoes become a major pest when growing the larva as fish feed?

[Sahib Punjabi]

Very nice follow up Carey.

 

Please note that I was not advocating using natural resources such as lakes and rivers but rather using "man-made" ponds and lakes...basically larger aquaponic tanks that use a number of filter methods such as bogs, waterfalls, tiered garden beds, rocks and shallow streams allowing for the irrigation, hence growing of numerous types of crops. Basically man's attempt to create a mini sustainable eco system, one that uses not only Aquaponic means of growing food but also makes use of other methods such as use of wicking beds, hydroponics, drip irrigation for soil based gardening, numerous large compost areas and growing a variety of crops to complement chemical balance.

 

I believe this is what I understand of the term TCLynx has coined... "Aqua-permaculture-ists" .

 

To do this I believe that one would probably need around three to four acres at a minimum. The success of such a venture would be greatly increased if there were similar "farms" adjacent so that full use could be made of different produce and by-products...chicken/duck farms, goat/lamb farms. There could also be fun activities such as pony and horse farms for people to learn to ride...the by product being the excellent fertilizer to complement the compost process and soil base organic gardening. Needless to say, the abundant fish waste would be the "gold" addition to other growing systems.

 

This is the way that I can see living in an environment where one would not need to purchase expensive fish feed as your system produces its own, it has become sustainable.

 

God bless, 

[Frank De Block-Burij (hygicell)]

just a few thoughts;

domestication and selection are codewords: it has not been done for fish except for ornamentals like Koi

every next generation will be better adapted to the replacement food we offer

a lot of research is done on replacing fish meal and oil by vegetable alternatives

I own a 7.5 ha lake that is teeming with perch
I have a small square net 1 m x 1 m that when I let it down and lift it after a minute, contains 50-100 7 cm fingerlings
three minutes later again 50-100. Last year I caught 1000 fingerlings in less than one hour.
I could feed those to bigger carnivore fish.

Did that in a large aquarium. The fry lasted only seconds.

I have never tried to ween the small perch on pellets.
but there might be a way:
have any of you heard of Topsy Baits?
they breed salt water ragworms (Nereis virens)
http://www.topsybaits.nl/
after harvesting the worms are minced and either fed directly to fish and shrimp larvae
or pellets are coated with the mince by a sister company in England

Frank

[TCLynx]

I don't know about that, there are plenty of people who have raise many generations of tilapia and have bread them for different characteristics, I expect that would qualify as domestication (similar to how farm animals are domesticated though perhaps not like a dog or cat.)

Frank De Block-Burij said:

just a few thoughts;

domestication and selection are codewords: it has not been done for fish except for ornamentals like Koi

every next generation will be better adapted to the replacement food we offer

[Harold Sukhbir]

Hi All,

Fantastic discussion as I'm seeing.Sorry but looks like I'm not able to get updates on this discussion and now I see its been going along nicely indeed. I think it is indeed worthy to look at a sustainability in a broad context as it is a very diverse area of exploration and is of great concern on a global scale. To me, Aquaponics is one of the means of addressing the needs of a human population's search for man made protein, a shift from his dependence from natural supply. Supply of manufactured fish feed, central to AP production, is no longer practical, so how can we duplicate fish meal? Fish meal contains essential Omega 3 and 6 long chain fatty acids necessary and indispensable for human survival. If AP has to be relied upon as one of the main ways in which we feed ourselves in the near future, seems to me we will have to investigate production methods of micro algae, krill etc as they are the primary source of these in nature.

 

If a model can be designed around a central conventional AP which can produce its own complete nutrient balanced feed from components incorporated in the design around it, I think we will be able to achieve sustainability.

 

We can already manufacture feed from a host of abundant inputs, there is no argument here, but self sustenance leads us in a whole other direction.

[Ellen Roelofs]

I have made my own food for my ornamental aquarium fish for a while, but have always bought a majority of ingredients at the grocery store, rather than growing my own.  I have blended ingredients together (eg. spinach, shrimp, egg) with a bit of gelatin and frozen it in flats. Here's a nice recipe for such a frozen food. http://www.loaches.com/articles/home-cooking-your-own-frozen-fishfood

 

Homegrown ingredients could include earthworms, AP plant cuttings and greens, eggs, some kind of squash or bean, mosquito larvae.

 

I know frozen food may be impractical for some applications... I'd definitely be interested to see any recipes for a nice pellet food.

 

On a side note, I've found boiled zuchinni and edamame (soy beans) to be very widely accepted -- I've yet to see a herbivore/omnivore pass them up.

[Carey Ma]

TCLynx- the theory was proven successful some seven, eight years ago (to some extent). I consulted for a project that turned out to be a scam to defraud the government out of land. The concept was to partner with the Canadian gov for genetics as a new showcase/ experimental farm/ eco attraction. Buildings and greenhouses were build and stocked and finally after almost two years of construction and we finally open to the public. This lasted exactly eight months when notice was given that the place will be closed down the following month. Now there is no trace of the farm at all as a new complex of hi-rise building have mushroomed in its place. At first I was shocked and amazed that anything like this could happen. A brand new, hi-tech facility torn down? Unheard of in western society. Later I learned that they did not break any rules because they did what they said they were going to do. But once the gov signed off on the property, they were free to do with it as they pleased, adding to the countries GDP. This kind of waste happens all the time here. In fact I have seen several hi-rise building torn down and rebuilt. This scam for land seems to be becoming a fad. I see a lot og greenhouses built but have been empty for the past year or two. To add to my sad story, I lost all my pictures in a fire so have absolutely nothing to show. My life here has been one trial after another.

 

As for the mosquitoes: I cover my tanks with screen but mainly rely on gathering enough larva before they pupate. Larva and pupa are fed to the guppies but my guppies don’t seem to like the big mouthful of hardness so have to scoop them out again after feeding. I dump the pupa  in with my meal worms to dry and ground for feed.

 

Sahib- Yes I agree. I think we are on the same page.

 

Frank- I could only dream of eating perch again. Oh how I miss life in the land of milk & honey (Western Washington). Perch, Bass, Bluegill…yum. Anyone want to send me some?

 

Harold- I prize myself for going through the trouble of making my own feed so that my chickens, eggs and fish have everything I can give them to be healthy and happy.

 

 My understanding is that green plants, insects and animals that eat them are good sources of Omega 3 while nuts and plants, insects and animals that eat grains contain the omega 6s, with 1:1 ratio being the target. ie Big fish eat smaller fish which eat krill which eat algea,  plankton and zoolankton.  Zoolankton eat plankton and inturn eat phytoplankton “the grass of the sea”. Same goes for land animals.

 

The following picture shows the difference between one of my eggs and a supposed “free-range” egg from the local organic market.

I’m not sure how sustainable a “conventional” stand-alone AP system can be. I have been trying to design a system for survival in an urban environment but so far am not there yet because our current urban nutrient cycle does not consider our excrement as a commodity. [Yes I love poop! In fact we have three “free toilets” (with solids and liquids separator) set up around the village. Our restaurant pays patrons free toilet paper (travel tip: most places except 4/5 star establishments DO NOT provide free toilet paper in mainland China) and a Dollar/Yen is taken off their bill, just to use our toilets.] Without our waste to return to the cycle, we simply cannot magically manufacture nutrients to fill this gap without resorting to commercial size operations. The best I have been able to do is support four adults and two growing children (six people) on an acre of land with enough surplus to sell/ barter, to pay for the other external needs like fuel, taxes and materials. As for urban survival; well the best anyone can do is add a worm composter or solider fly composter to supplement bought food and recycle clean kitchen waste. There is simply not enough space to run any sort of operation even with the rooftop being utilized. Unutilized rooftops is another of my pet-peeve topics. Single level rooftop gardens cannot feed it’s residence but any local supplement helps.

 

Now I have more land and many more mouths to feed; a good proving ground for my theories. All I have to do now is find money to continue building and experimenting. We’ll se how full of my favorite stuff I am.

 

I think Sahib has the right notion of cooperating communities because it really does take critical mass for it to be effective. What I think we need to be doing is study more and convince ourselves that to be sustainable means being responsible. And being responsible does not allow for shortcuts. We all must be willing to pay the real cost of our existence and reconnect with the spiritual side of life so we can respect ourselves and others enough to do what is right over what makes a profit. Of course in this capitalistic society and world, we have little choice but to march to World Banks directives and include financial sustainability, does not mean we should take undue advantage of our neighbors. I hate the term “fair market value”.

 

I apologize for rambling and blathering my psychobabble. Please encourage me only if you want to hear more of my unorganized thoughts.

 

Cheers