basic aquaponics theory?

[Brian Mouncer]

Hi,

I'm a compleate newbie, so please be patient...

I grew up on a small country farm, but moved away do do computer science.

I like gardening though and am looking into aquaponic for my urban back yard.

 

I still have one basic question not realy explained in Bernstein's Aquaponics Gardening book.

In traditional garening you compost the stalks and roots of plants you've grown, and you grow cover crops and nitrigen fixers to restore balance to the soil.

 

How do you balance an aqauponics system?  your taking out large amounts of minerals from the system, and adding back in fish food.  as the harvest goes on, I will end up with lots of plant waste and food scraps that I would usualy compost and add back into the system, how do you do this with aquaponics?  The ultimate solution would be taking the human waste and putting it back into the system too, so that it would be a "compleate cycle".  e.g. a septic system that grew fish food, that you then transfered to the fish two step filter to isolate human deseases... but I'm guessing people grow there own fish food, and ignore/compinsate for the losses going down the toilet? 

 

What and how do you grow for fish food (for this topic lets say I have trout or pirch)?

Do you have a seporate compose bin, with bugs and worms that become fish food?

For vegitarian fish, do you have a seporate bed/garden with plants the fish will eat. how do you go about processing the food you feed to the fish - grow it in the fish tank or a seporate alge tank???

 

 

Thanks,

 

Brian.

[George]

Yep, I've read about gammarus.  We have a media system here at present but I'm beginning to think about an expansion which may include a settling tank, post media and that would be a good place to introduce scuds.  My drain from media beds is low, near the ground, so I thought it might be best to drain from there to a sump, then pump to NFT or DWC, then drain back to tank.  Our tank is in the ground and at present we pump from tank to media, then drain back to tank.  The video is very interesting. 

Jon Parr said:

George, scuds (or gammarus) are key to Aquaponics IMO. 

[George]

Keith, what kind of crays are you growing and how well do they reproduce?  Are they cold tolerant?

Keith Rowan said:

i also grow crayfish to feed the perch - i have seen tilapia eat the crays as well..