Why aquaponics

[Basil1]

Just out of sheer curiosity, why do you do aquaponics?
More economically feasible?
Trying to be ecologically responsible?
The sheer fun?
A combination thereof?
Or something else entirely. If for economic or ecological reasons, what other endeavors do you undertake in these areas?

[keith_r]

i "found" aquaponics when i was researching raising rabbits, and came across travis hughey's barrelponics.. found out i couldn't raise rabbits in our village, so changed up to ap.. still haven't harvested any fish yet, but right now it's been about learning, and adapting to my situation.. i think there may be some "business niches" (not to many commercial ap systems) in AP, and i have a few ideas, but for now, it's just learning, and keeping my day job (and health insurance!)

[rfeiller]

It allows me the opportunity to combine two of my biggest interest, raising fish for pleasure as pets and they get to subsidize my food bill, not a vegan, but I eat a lot of veggies. The food is top quality nutritionally superior in the veggies and flowers do wonderfully to help my wife's florist business. It's a win win.
Oh, then there is the fun of creating things an reinventing the wheel :D

[Oliver]

In 2008, after the economic melt-down became evident, my partner, Grace, and I decided that we needed to prepare ourselves in case the economic situation continued to slide. One of the first things we knew we needed to do was to start growing some of our own food. Grace suggested we buy/build a greenhouse as the climate here in the high desert of Southern California has over 70 degree F temperature swings over a period of a year.

I suggested that we look into hydroponics even though I knew nothing about it other than you could grew food more densely. Grace did some web searching and found aquaponics. It made so much sense to me that I immediately read as much as I could find and asked as many questions as I could on the forums for the following three months.

We also decided that if we were to continue down this path we needed to have continuous electrical power and a large amount of stored water. So, we purchased an Aurora 6.5 KW Diesel generator, 10 KWH of battery power, a 6 KW Xantrex inverter/charger and a 2600 gallon water tank along with a pressure pump and tank. The generator has an auto-start function (due to added Xantrex circuitry) when the battery voltage gets down to a preset level and the inverter has a built in auto-transfer switch. We have already real world tested this system when we had a 20 hour power failure starting about 6 PM Valentines day 2011, coinciding with a rather large solar CME and EMP. As we are on town treated water, we installed a whole house water filter, passive softener (no salts) and a 50 watt automatic UV sterilizer to use on both town and stored water.

It was at that time that I decided to go out and purchase an aquaponics system for our soon to be built greenhouse. To my surprise, there was nothing available that would fit our requirements. So, I decided to find the components on some aquaponics site, order them and put a system together. Once again, there was no such single web site that supplied everything we needed. It was then that an idea came that has cost us a lot of money, and that was to build and sell systems and their components so others could also enjoy this great endeavor.

Because I have an engineering background I believed I could design a system that would work right off the design board. As anyone who has built a system from scratch knows, I had much to learn. So, after a few iterations and many modifications and upgrades, along with the mistakes made, the present system works well and it is beginning its third year of operation.

We have grown quite a variety of different vegetables with mixed results. Currently we are growing more peppers than we could possible eat and that is in less than one 10 sq. ft. grow bed. Lettuce, along with basil, is perhaps the easiest to grow. Grace just now Skyped me and I watched her eat part of a small watermelon, our first, as it had fallen off the vine and onto the floor, broke open and had to be eaten. Darn, wish I could have been there for that but I'm currently over two hours driving time away as I made the trip this morning. She said it was extra tasty.

What we have learned has been shared here on this forum. One thing we learned was, that in such an extreme climate, to maintain a growable temperature in a rather heat transparent greenhouse, you need to have some deep pockets for the utility bills. As a result of this enlightenment, we are now completing a grow room from what was our back porch of about the same dimensions as the greenhouse, well insulated with much less heating and cooling requirements. It will need to have grow lights and that is part of what we will be learning and sharing here as we progress through this process.

Oliver

[urbanfarmer]

Curiosity and my general love for science and gardening.

@Oliver Do you have a plan if the generator fails or has a damaged part? For instance, do you have a spare or many spare parts? How long do you think the generator will last? (I ask because I have considered a diesel generator as an option especially since you can grow your own fuel.)

[Oliver]

Diesel engines are very simple and a generally unaffected by EMPs. As for spare parts, no, hadn't even considered it, but now that you mention it, I guess I need to go spend even move money and either buy some possible breakdown parts or an additional generator. Or, not.

The biggest issue, as I see it, is the amount of fuel that can be long termed stored, as Diesel fuel spoils after a time. I add a little acetone which helps with the fuel consumption as well as helping to preserve the fuel, at least that is what I am told.

The generator should last for many years if properly maintained. Regular oil changes are important, more so on Diesels than gas engines. Diesel generators also get about three times the conversion efficiency from fuel to electricity than do their gas counterparts. This is in part due to the use of inefficient carburetors on the cheeper gas generators. Diesels also have a conversion efficiency advantage purely by design.

Oliver

[JCO]

OK Basil1, now that you have heard from a few of our members here, I have a question for you. Are you interested in Aquaponics sufficiently enough to start your own system?

[rfeiller]

diesel generators are extremly reliable, the only recommedation i would add is to have one that will operate on two different types of fuels, i.e. natural gas, propane, alcahol in addition to diesel. in an emergency one or the other of the fuels may not be available. this is a basic requirement for new construction commercial projects especially medical.

another concept for cold weather enviornments are co-gen units where the heat produces steam or hot water which can then be utilized for heating a large greenhouse, or in one case i built a laundry for a nursing home.

[Basil1]

OK Basil1, now that you have heard from a few of our members here, I have a question for you. Are you interested in Aquaponics sufficiently enough to start your own system?

Actually just restarted an in tank raft and looking forward to expanding it with the knowledgable help found here. First one grew just basil, but the best tasting basil ever making fantastic pesto sauce. That one had no fish, just pumped water from the big tank into it during weekly water changes.

[grimsteph]

For me, it was a fun hobby that also produces something of value too.

[urbanfarmer]

For me, it was a fun hobby that also produces something of value too.
Ah, the innocent stages of aquaponics... just before the onset of ADDICTION! :lol: mwahahaha

[Bioritize]

I started this for a few reasons. I am all about sustainability and local food. I am in the process of closing my solar/small wind business and I am looking for new business ventures. Fresh fish and veggies all year sounds like a good idea.

I also think that we are about to face major difficulties in many different aspects of our lives; peaking of natural resources, dollar devaluation and the like. This is a way for me to eat local food that is fresh and organic and requires very few fossil fuels, therefore will be a resilient market in the future.

I think to fix this shit, we must localize everything and provide our food, energy, shelter, water as close to home as possible. Thus, eliminating the need for these large corrupt systems, i.e government, large corporations, banks...

Aquaponics is a great idea for the future.


Oliver, Have you considered a couple solar panels to keep your batteries happy?

[Oliver]

Funny you should ask about the solar panels. We've been waiting for the price to drop enough to give us only a few years payback.

The good/bad news is we are usually in tier 5 on our electric usage. That translates to over 30 cents per KWH. If I could generate about 285 KWH per month of solar electricity that would drop us back to tier 4 as the highest tier and save us about $46 per month.

We live in a very sunny area of high desert. The question is this, how much solar panel wattage would I need to average that amount of energy? We are at 34 degrees North Latitude.

Prices are now down around $1.34 per watt. I have room for about 2.4 KW of panels maximum, in a fully sun lit area.

What would be the average daily sping-summer/fall-winter output of such an array if aligned to my local latitude?

Oliver

[urbanfarmer]

That should roughly be 720 kWh a month given 30 days of 10 hours of sunlight a day. It's extremely variable, but with 2.4 kW of panels you should easily get the 285 kWh you desire! Even at half the sunlight you would still get 360 kWh per month.

[Oliver]

I believe that 10 hours a day is high. I am no solar voltaic's expert. I've heard numbers like 5 hours a day year round. The sun is only at the optimum (East-West) angle for just a few hours at best. Rising and setting sun angles are the worst (except for night, of course). Everything else is somewhere in-between. I was looking for some hard numbers for the average amount of sunshine (based on the solar index and a fixed panel position) so I could get an idea of payback time.

Edited: I just looked it up and for my area the average Solar Insolation is closer to six sun hours per day.

Oliver

[rfeiller]

Oliver be sure and factor the permit fees. Here in the SF bay area permits can run in the thousands. I pay three times the standard rate for most of the power I use, but solar doesn' t pencil for me.

[Bioritize]

I am a PV designer or have been for the past 4 years.

It looks like you have an average of about 6.7 peak sun hours per day in your area.

Working backwards from your goal of 285 per month or 9.4 kWh's per day. 9.4 / 6.7 =- 1.39 / .77(derate for losses) = 1.81 kW of solar needed.

If you want to fill the entire space you can get about 4095 kWh's per year with a 2.4 kW array.

In CA with your rebates and power rates, this stuff makes sense out of the box.

Permit fees are not that bad in most area's especially if you mount them on the ground.

[urbanfarmer]

I am a PV designer or have been for the past 4 years.

It looks like you have an average of about 6.7 peak sun hours per day in your area.

Working backwards from your goal of 285 per month or 9.4 kWh's per day. 9.4 / 6.7 =- 1.39 / .77(derate for losses) = 1.81 kW of solar needed.

If you want to fill the entire space you can get about 4095 kWh's per year with a 2.4 kW array.

In CA with your rebates and power rates, this stuff makes sense out of the box.

Permit fees are not that bad in most area's especially if you mount them on the ground.
NICE RESPONSE! GREAT TO HAVE YOU HERE BIORITIZE! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[Oliver]

Really don't want to carry this thread down this road much further but I am wondering about permits, something I hadn't considered. The house is already covered with a solar water heater for our pool, an above ground 15,000 gallon unit with a deck. Looks like it is in-ground pool due to the slope of the land. But I do digress.

All of the solar V. panels will be on there own structure or structures, depending on how my measurements of fully sun lite back yard space turns out tomorrow when I pull out the big measuring tape. I want to see if my trig is right in calculating where the sun created shadow from a storage shed will dictate the location of the southern edge of the panels on December 22nd at the sun's lowest point in the sky. Don't want the shed's shadow hitting the lowest panels.

I will also need to determine if the top of the solar structure will shadow any of the greenhouse, which will be to the north. Hopefully, I will be able to install about 3200 watts of panels on a single structure starting about three feet above ground level.

Oliver

[wh33t]

I find the "why" becomes more and more important the older I get (28 now).

Why Aquaponics, for me it's about personal integrity. A year or so ago I watched a film called Collapse which showcases quite bluntly just how dependent the world is on oil. I was blown away at just how much oil plays a crucial role on our global economy and on all life itself on the planet. After watching Collapse I was switched on to learning new information and I shed much of my old ideals and ego which invariably led me to become part of the Zeitgeist Movement.

Aquaponics for me simply is about sustainability. In this great David vs Goliath (civilians versus mega corporations) conundrum the only thing I find each individual can truly do is sustain their own life to the best of their abilities. Aquaponics is a huge step in the right direction for that. Not only is Aquaponics healthier than most store purchased veggies, it's also cheaper and easier beyond the initial investment. Every time a family purchases local grown food or produces their own food another brick in the support structure of the powers that be is eliminated.

We all want world peace, a sustainable life and the security of knowing that our children and their children will inherit a better life and a better planet than we ourselves inherited (at least I hope that's what we all want). I personally can't believe that this is possible with out Aquaponics anymore. Aquaponics plays such a significant role in combating so many of the globalized problems we face today. Not only is it more productive and natural and kinder on the environment it's also A HELL OF A LOT easier than traditional gardening which just has to be the best icing on an already deliciously nutritious cake.

Furthermore, I'm a huge computer geek, I program databases and back end management systems for my day job. I'm learning more and more about automation through the Arduino platform. I personally feel with minimal knowledge and experience in both gardening, aquaculture and robotics any individual capable of reading on the world wide web can 90% automate their own home food production... Now that would be a step in right direction...

Just my two cents. :D Great thread.

[LisaM12]

Because aquaponics is a great system that works. Aquaponics is a unique system that combines two systems that you may already have some knowledge about. These two systems are hydroponics and aquaculture. It's a great system because the combination of both systems actually balances each other and makes a perfect eco system. With hydroponics, you can grow a multitude of fruits and vegetables like lettuce, potatoes, carrots or tomato's. With aquaculture, you can raise, Koi, White Bass, Catfish Bass, escargot, or crappies.