home food production (permaculture)

[mad murdock]

Has anyone on the forum dabbled in (permaculture), or aquaponics? I have a friend who has studied up on it and built a small greenhouse and plant beds with the fish tank (300 Gal.)  He has about 150 Talapia and can produce lettuce and tomatoes, and other fresh produce at an amazing rate.  His plant rafts are 4x8 styro beds.  I know that in areas in Oz and NZ there is more of this going on.  Just wondering if anyone on the forum is doing it, and what kind of success you are experiencing, and at what cost for initial set-up. 

[fishpharmer]

Mad, I have a keen interest in aquaponics. I am planning a system now.  Its neat stuff. Although from an economic point of view, provided you don't live in a desert, dirt farming is more practical.

[mad murdock]

Te system that my friend has set up on a budget, didn't cost hime a bundle, it is practical, and he can produce a lot of produce, and fish protien as well.  He has had it going now for a couple months, and is still working the learning curve, he says that it is costing him about $40.00/month in increased energy bills, but just in lettuce he can grow sustained 50 head of lettuce a week.  The plant growth and production with this type of system is quite startling, to say the least.

[Norm]

MM I'd love to see pics of his operation if you ever get a chance. 

[SPIKER]

sounds really interesting.   I have seen similar sounding setups in Mother Earth News (older version seemed much better than the new mag has become.)  Just also thought it would be nice to hear how the he does his.

Mark

[mad murdock]

I will snap some pics of it next time I go over there. Basically he has a 300 gallon open water tank (poly) like you buy at a feed store, with a styrofoam cover so the fish won't try and jump out, the outflow from that tank goes into a 55 gallon poly drum with the top cut off, and a couple of "baffles" so the water doesn't just flow directly in-out of that drum, a sort of settling tank.  From there it goes into the grow beds, a couple of lumber framed 4x8x about 16" high beds, that are lined with a poly tarp, kind of the same material as a flex-side swimming pool, with inflow and outflows on each bed, he uses about 2" thick styrofoam 4x8 with plubs cut out for the plants, with plant spacing at about 8-12inches on a grid on the whole sheet.  He has a water heater in the fish tank that keeps the water temp about 65-70 deg. the Talapia need warmer water.  Some other fish species that are used with good results are rainbow trout, and catfish.  The water flow on his system after the plant beds goes through another  poly drum with the top cut off that is filled with these little plastic pellets, that act as some sort of media for a good bacteria to grow on, which helps clean the water further.  He even has some smaller "sucker fish" that act as system cleaners, the same kind of small fish that eat algae build up that you get on home type freshwater fish aquariums.  Then of course the water goes back into the fish tank.  He has about 6 or so aireator pumps in the fish tank, which are like burning a 60 watt light bulb for power draw.  The most power used he says is with the circulation pumps and the heater element.  He says you can increase fish population on a system to about 1 fish per cu. ft. of water, and they do well.  He is at a little less than 1/2 capacity right now, and will increase it as he gets more comfortable and gets a little more learning done on how to make it successful.  I am soaking it in as I can, since I only just was exposed to it, I have a bunch of learning to do, but I am thinking I am going to set up a system at my place and try to have the water be gravity flow one direction anyway, and the just have to pump it back up from the low end of the system.  His greenhouse that he put up using 4x4's and 2x4's is probably 20'x12' or so. Not a real big footprint.  All of the components that I saw on his system are not exotic materials, just PVC tubing, plastic hardware store fittings, simple circulation pumps and the like.

[Norm]

Thanks for the explanation MM. 

[ErikC]

 Very interesting to me as well. Look forward to some pictures, but that was a good explanation.

[Leigh Family Farm]

Check out Aquaponics.com and backyardaquaponics.com for more info. It's a great site that has a lot of information on the subject. When I get a little piece of homestead, I plan to have a small AP system in a 12'x20' greenhouse.

[maple flats]

This past spring my wife and I visited a farm called Aqua-Vita, in Sherrill, NY. They are set up in an old factory building. They had 3 long rows of growing beds with lettuce grown on foam mats. Each row was at least 150' long (guessing). On one corner they had a fish tank that was the mother tank for new eggs. At the other end of the building were all the growing tanks. In each tank the fish were classed by size. The fish were fed during the tour and the surface rolled violently with fish feeding in a frenzy. Water was continuously circulated to the plant growing tanks. Each growing tank was 4' wide and each had 2 levels (x 150'? long) and the water under the mats was between 2.5 and 3" deep. The nutrient rich water from the fish tanks fed the lettuce roots hanging below the floating mats and then was returned to the fish tanks. We were told ours would be the last tour for a few weeks, because they were adding a 4th row of growing tanks for more lettuce because demand was exceeding production. While this is not home food production it was very interesting and they distributed locally plus to 2 larger distributors  for the northeast US. 

[mad murdock]

Thanks for that report Maple Flats!  I was not able to get pics of my friends setup, and now they have up and moved to southern Utah, so I will have to get him to send me some pics of his setup and get them on here.  I as yet have not been able to get my own system going, but it is on my "to do" list! :

[DanG]

I have put some thought into a sort of permaculture method.  I was thinking of a smallish fish pond with some floating grow-mats, but only as part of the operation.  You gotta feed the fish something, so their natural food should be best.  The other side of the operation would be earthworms, maggots and crickets.  Enough earthworms to do the trick would produce a large quantity of high-quality compost, which would be used to grow more crops in the traditional manner.  The leftover plant matter from that would help to feed the bugs and make more compost, as well as feed me and some other dumb animals like a steer, chickens, rabbits, etc.  I would use catfish and bluegills in the pond, as bluegills reproduce copiously around here and their excess offspring would help feed the catfish.  A separate bluegill hatchery tank might also help here.

[Leigh Family Farm]

DanG,
You will need to be careful with having the plants in the fish pond. The way a aquaponics system works is because the components are separated to allow for the maximum amount of nutrients to be used. By this I mean, you can have a simple 200 gallon fish pond (room for about 20 10" tilapia) that pumps water into two 200 gallon grow beds (2 ft. wide x 8 ft. long x 12" deep ~ I think this is 200 gallons?). You can build an auto-siphon that will drain the water automatically whenever the water level reaches a certain height.

This is important because it allows the grow media to produce the necessary bacteria for turning the ammonia infused fish water into nitrites into nitrates. The fish get clean water, the plants get great nutrients, and you get fish and veggies!

Also, for fish food you can use worms, black fly grubs (search the web for growing them because its kinda simple to make their home), and duckweed growing in a bucket above the grow beds.

www.backyardaquaponics.com is a great website and they have an awesome forum.

[DanG]

Thanks for the input and the link.  I'll check out that forum.  I'm thinking about a bit bigger operation than that though.  20 tilapia wouldn't do me much good I'm afraid.  If I couldn't grow plants directly on the pond, I could experiment with some grow tanks seperately or forego that part altogether.  The important thing to me would be to grow decent quantities of fish and plants in a sustainable manner, without a lot of cash outlay.

[doctorb]

I would like to thank everyone for their knowledge on this topic, as I have very little insight into this subject.  My first question is directed toward the scale of these operations.  If they can be economically run at home and have such high production of fish and vegetables, why hasn't this been done on a much larger scale.  It would require much fewer acres to produce a higher yield. 

My second question would be about infection or disease, either of the fish or the plants.  It seems to me that invasion of some unwanted disease might cripple the entire system, as treatment of the disease may affect other growing constituents along the chain  That would make this a little higher risk than aquafarming and dirt farming separately.  Comments?

[Al_Smith]

From my limited knowledge of the subject it's more towards experimentation on a rather small scale taking the whole big picture of agriculture.
My BIL has had success growing tropical type plants using a similar system with irrigation but using glass marbles as a base instead of soil which is basically what "mother earth news " did 30 years ago .

Other uses of similar systems of which I have no real experiance which  are shall we say "covert " black opts type things .You read about these in the news every so often .

[Leigh Family Farm]

To get a good supply of fish (say 3 a week) for eating, you will need to have a rather large tank. The tank is not necessarily the problem, because you can always dig a large hole and add a pond liner. There is a calculator on the BYAP forum but roughly its 1 gallon per 1 inch of fish. The other issues with having a large fish operation is the need to filter the water properly, which can cost a lot of money and effort. You would be surprised how much a simple 10' x 20' greenhouse aquaponics operation can produce year round. You won't get 3 fish a week, more like 1 a week, but you will have all the veggies a family could eat.

As for diseases and system crashes, the system is pretty self regulating. You might have to add a little potassium or maybe some calcium to correct the problems. Also, the grow beds are pretty good at providing clean water to the fish. Some species of fish are hardier than others as well. I have seen some operations that are segmented (three independent systems) to reduce the risk of disease/infection.

Grow bed media is usually expanded clay pellets. Glass marbles are too smooth to provide for good bacteria growth.

[Handymark]

Look up Growing Power for a great example of a large scale operation. I am still trying to get myself up to Minnesota to tour their operation. I have been thinking of a large trough type tank in the center of a greenhouse and using the outside wood boiler as a heat source which would then heat and humidify the greenhouse. Tilapia are vegetarian fish so the can live off duck weed and waste plant material from the greenhouse operation. Fish feed the plants and the plants feed the fish. Seems too good to be true. I found a source for large fish tanks that measure 4'deep x8' wide and 40' long.

[Leigh Family Farm]

Thats a nice big tank HandyMark. For one that size, I would look into a separate biofilter and sediment filter so that you can remove the solid waste particles from the fish. Also, WELCOME TO THE FORUM!!!

[Handymark]

Thanks. I am like a kid in a candy store with all of this info in one place.

[drobertson]

For city folks, what a great Idea! I wonder why so many have forgotten the good ole bushy tail? and cotton tail?
Nature has it's way of providing all that we need, if we chose to utilize its potential, with good conservation practice.   That said, I love fish, just fortunate enough to live by running waters. 

[jimparamedic]

I worked at a vocational school for about 5 yrs. Out in the green house we had a 300 gal tank with gold fish.We keeped a lite pond weed growing on top to shade the fish and also they would eat it. The water was pumped from the bottom of the tank (the fish poo) into 10' sections of gutter with gutter gard on top with 1 1/2" holes every 6" for the plants.We had about 15 sections set up in tears of three. water went in the top one run the length of the gutter and down into the next one and so on then back to the tank. We growed everything we could think to try. took a little engineering to keep some plants uprite but we addapted and over come. Good food year round.

[Okrafarmer]

Here's what I finished and set in operation today.


 

Mostly salvaged material except for the chicken wire, and a box of 12 penny nails.

[mad murdock]

Poultry is a great thing to have in any food production plan, IMO.  You get several side benefits-eggs, meat, and great bug control wherever you let them range!  Looks good Okra.
Another good animal to consider is meat goats.  They can eat about any vegetation and don't cost an arm and  aleg to get into.  Out here in the Coast Range of Oregon, they do wonders for blackberry control!I don't know how they can eat those nasty Himalayan Blackberry plants but they do.  I will be incorporating goats into my plan within the next 12 months.  Dariy Goats are good too, goatmilk and products from goatmilk (cheese and butter), are easy to make, and the milk protein from goat's milk is easier for us (humans) to digest with way less lactose intolerant type reactions than cow's milk.  Just have to get used to the taste.

[Okrafarmer]

I moved the chicken tractor today and it looked like they didn't eat all the grass down, so I may add another hen tomorrow. That will make 5. Now I need to make 2 or 3 more to get the rest of my chooks on "safe" "free"-range.