Aquaponic system ph level and nutrients

[Oliver]

Regarding Nitraponics, we currently have that url parked. At some point in the future I will be writing more about it. For now, we are running tests on the best way to make the conversion of organic material directly to plant food via a Bio-digester, which will be incorporated into the new system we are currently building after our move here to White Mountains of Arizona. NitraPonics is about taking sources of organic Nitrogen, and through Biological processes, converting it into Nitrates for the plants, all done in water. As stated, NitraPonics is a subset of BioPonics.

If you search out BioPonics you will find that the term was coined in the 1990s by Tom (late) and Paula Spereano of S & S Farms in Missouri, USA, pioneers of Aquaponics. You will also find that "Bioponics is a new technique of soilless farming pioneered at Bioponica" (2017 quote) on their web site. I thought that I would also claim the "discovery" and "coining" of the phase as well, just recently; but a quick search showed me that several had gone before. It seems that Bioponica didn't do their due diligence before making their claim. So, I will not make that claim. But, I did come upon it independently with the exception of a professor Aecio D'Silva who saw one of our systems in a school and called it AquaBioPonics, which at the time (5 years ago) I didn't like the name but now embrace.

It just goes to show that the old saying of "there is nothing new under the sun" is still in play. Anyone who has been into Aquaponics for some time and active on Aquapoincs forums has seen all the newbies come along with all kinds of ways to reinvent the wheel (I know, I was one of them), but I can only repeat what Murray Hallam (whom I consider my mentor) told me back 8 years ago, "go with what works and then experiment later".

The only thing that I am bringing to this old technology is perhaps an engineer's perspective of trying to improve the process. So far it appears that may be the case, at least until I see an article about how someone already did it way back when.

For the time being, we will only be sharing our NitraPonics progress in our upcoming class this summer, once we have a working model in place.

As far as EC goes, it is a term used in Hydroponics, where almost every aspect of the nutrient balance is controlled. In Aquaponics we tend to let nature control much of the system chemistry with some husbandry applied, such as keeping the pH within a certain range and adding some minerals as required; as not everything the plants require are in the fish food. Dr. James Rakocy of UVI tried to use only the fish effluent to supply all the plant requirements and found that he needed large quantities fish in order to feed the plants everything they needed and came up with a fish to plant ratio that was growing lots of fish. The main problem with his method was that he was removing most of the fish solid waste, which contain lots of mineral nutrients and provide a source of additional ammonia and therefore Nitrates, equal to or more than what the fish were providing.

You need to look at your numbers again. DO won't be above 8.5, as that is 100% saturation. Please continue reading Aqauponics 101 tab at the top of this page.

In short, I think you are over thinking this.

Oliver

[kr3t3n]

Thank you very much for your reply, Oliver! I will re-read the Aquaponics 101 several times probably until I actually move to doing something in reality other than planning. So far I'm still trying to understand how it all works! Bioponics sounds exciting, if possible to maintain an organic system for the plants without fish, that would be my preference (I do not eat fish and do not want to breed fish, will do it only for the aquaponics model).

[thechaossmurf]

id also suggest you can always make more than one aquaponics system ---that way you can grow things in one PH or another PH independently of each other --as long as you keep them close enuff to the middle that the bacteria doesn't go belly up maybe do some of the small 55 gallon drum systems too test ideas on & do smaller scale killing of fish and plants while ya learn --instead of overbuilding a huge system ---not saying you have to start small just a suggestion ---my biggest suggestion though is this ....anything you can see you can build yourself