Help me - Aquaponics

Hello ATS, I need your help.
First of all I have to say I'm a 24 year old guy (or kid, whatever you wanna call me) from Colombia. I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this but, oh well..

Recently, a good Friend of mine won the elections for Mayor, you don't need the details. The thing is, I'm in. And I want to help people. I've been really interested in Aquaponics since the first day I saw it here on ATS, and I believe it can be used to feed and create jobs for really poor people.

The first video I saw about it was this one:
1 MILLION pounds of Food on 3 acres. 10,000 fish 500 yards compost

And I'm wondering, having the resources, the space and the will do it, is it really possible to reduce malnutrition to the minimum, or make it dissapear.




What I need is all the documentation you could provide, to make this happen. All the info you can get, ideas, etc.
Smart ways to use the space (there is plenty).

I have already mailed people from www.aquaponics.net.au...

But I cant seem to find anything on a larger scale. If everything works, I'm sure it will spread as a virus all over the country (until Monsanto steps in, then we gotta kick them out heheheh)




One thing that would help a lot is that in Colombia, we have no real seasons. The weather remains the same all year long, which sucks for christmas but I guess it could make the Aquaponic system more efficient.

Any help or documentation is really appreciated!

Im surprised your thread hasnt gotten more 'bites' yet. Ill bite. I am by no means an expert in aquaponics myself, I only recently started learning about it. I cant give you technical documents or anything but here are a few things to ponder at least.

I would worry less about 'scaling it up' and possibly setting up more facilities, albeit smaller, throughout the area. This will provide many more wide-spread job opportunities, the money will stay more local, as will the food. Additionally given your stable climate, smaller scale facilities may not lose efficiency as easily (as in economies of scale).

One thing you do have to keep in mind though is that the crops you choose to grow generally must be leafy and green. These crops have the highest nitrogen requirements and benefit the best from the nitrogen cycle in your fish tanks. Thats not to say that you cant grow other crops, you just need to ensure the nutrients produced are able to be absorbed by the plants you choose to grow, while ensuring that no nutrients are missing from your chosen crops nutrient requirements.

Tilapia are a popular choice of fish, but systems have been known to use trout which grow a bit faster. Popular crops are generally lettuce and spinach (kale, cabbage, etc as close seconds).

I hope I gave you some food for thought, and would love to be kept updated as to your progress!

I am writing a business plan now to start and aquaponics operation. PM if you have any questions and buy the movie aquaponics secrets. its cheap and has great info...



basically you need a plan start a checklist and get funding. it will cost me in the U.S. almost 30K to get a profitable business running.

what technique do you want to use NFT or grow bed?

start to your list.
greenhouse, and greenhouse temp. control.
there are many ways to do this off grid

water tanks and plumbing.

water pump with backups.
aeration for the fish.

what type of fish are you going to keep.
what temp. do they like.

what type of produce will you grow.
and what water temp do they like.

this system WORKS it has worked for many years world hunger is a business. some must be hungry so the majority can be fat. its sad but that's business for you.

some links
Greenhouses





Making Waste our Greatest Resource

I could post many more look into black soldier fly larvae for feeding you fish you can grow them very cheaply

this site has PH testers electronic so they save time.
www.growerssupply.com...;gs1_hydroponics;gs1_ph_tds_testers.html

Originally posted by IntegratedInstigator
Im surprised your thread hasnt gotten more 'bites' yet. Ill bite. I am by no means an expert in aquaponics myself, I only recently started learning about it. I cant give you technical documents or anything but here are a few things to ponder at least.

I would worry less about 'scaling it up' and possibly setting up more facilities, albeit smaller, throughout the area. This will provide many more wide-spread job opportunities, the money will stay more local, as will the food. Additionally given your stable climate, smaller scale facilities may not lose efficiency as easily (as in economies of scale).

One thing you do have to keep in mind though is that the crops you choose to grow generally must be leafy and green. These crops have the highest nitrogen requirements and benefit the best from the nitrogen cycle in your fish tanks. Thats not to say that you cant grow other crops, you just need to ensure the nutrients produced are able to be absorbed by the plants you choose to grow, while ensuring that no nutrients are missing from your chosen crops nutrient requirements.

Tilapia are a popular choice of fish, but systems have been known to use trout which grow a bit faster. Popular crops are generally lettuce and spinach (kale, cabbage, etc as close seconds).

I hope I gave you some food for thought, and would love to be kept updated as to your progress!

edit on 10-11-2011 by IntegratedInstigator because: minor grammatical fixes

good info I would just like to say that you can grow anything this way I have seen banana trees orange trees strawberries tomatoes carrots they grow much faster, larger and healthier in an Aquaponics system.

shrimp are a very good medium aswell.

I plan on using a species of trout that is close to the endangered species list.

Good Idea, hope it works out for you.
All it takes is a little knowledge and drive.
Good luck to you in your endeavor!!

reply to post by -W1LL


I understand anything can be grown with this system, it is just my understanding that plants requiring high nitrogen (which is generally the case with leafy green edibles) are generally a better fit for an aquaponics system given the nitrogen cycles of an 'aquarium'. The goal of my post was two fold; first to kick start further discussion on this topic, and second to give a few starting points for OP to ponder. I thought I had been clear in my response that anything can be grown, but leafy greens are best suited.

That being said, I have pondered starting an aquaponics business myself, but have only begun to learn everything. Your post was extremely helpful to me even, being in the beginning stages of research. I will be purchasing the video, and following the links you provided to absorb as much information on the subject as I can, its an awesome method I had only just recently heard of!

Lastly, I agree with the variety allowed to be used in aquaponics, both plant and aquatic. I have seen a system that grows many crops with the nutrient water, and the fish tanks had both shrimp and a fish species, with water-cress floating on the fish tanks. The baby shrimp served as food for the fish, the adult shrimp were harvested for food, and water-cress is edible itself; not to mention the large yield that the nutrient rich water itself grew!
I have also seen 'more traditional' systems with fish ranging from tilapia, trout, catfish, even bass (large or small mouth, I cant remember), and they were growing all the regular plants from a typical back yard garden. Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Peppers, Scallions, Beets, Beans and Peas, Etc.
It is also my understanding that you will generally net higher crop yields using leafy greens which require high nitrogen, and which will more effictively filter the 'dirty' water to make it 'clean' for your fish. Not that other crops cant effectively filter the water, just some are better than others.

All in all Will definately deserves a star for a quality post here

Thank you all for the replies, I have been traveling the last 2 weeeks and I didnt bring my laptop here.. besides I got kinda mad because the thread was taken down due to "activism"

Anyways, Will get to work on that and will pm some of u after i get the dvd ! I have this month to get the plan in paper, because we start working since January 1st! (altho we are working already in other matters)

reply to post by IntegratedInstigator


thank you!

I didn't mean to sound combative, I feel exactly the same as you and my goal is to get this info out there and to have an Aquaponics farms in every town small and large. there is no excuse for hunger...

It has been quite a while since we have discussed this, and I noticed your target start date is January 1st. How is your project coming?

I assume you have the budget and business plan all set by now, have you begun construction yet? If you dont mind, could you post a general time frame in which you are planning to complete specific stages of the project, and maybe also your intended budget? What an awesome project that I can feel proud to be a tiny part of!

reply to post by IntegratedInstigator


March third, havent started yet
Budget 500,000 USD

Finishing all the paperwork, and it seems I need to hire a couple American Engineers hehe

its the way in which Jesus (imho) was able to feed the 5000.

Originally posted by aNdReSk
reply to post by IntegratedInstigator

 

March third, havent started yet
Budget 500,000 USD

Finishing all the paperwork, and it seems I need to hire a couple American Engineers hehe

wow good job with that funding you should be able to get at least 10 diff operations up and running in 10 diff cities.

what do you need engineers for?

I have been looking into using full spectrum LED instead of a greenhouse just use an already built warehouse set up small solar and wind on the roof and youre good to grow.

ultraledlights.com...

and when designing your grow beds think of building up because water runs downhill.

You're all crazy if you aren't using this system:

Omega Garden

I have a whole business I've recently started that revolves around growing food with this particular system. I have cut grow cycles by 2/3 using high intensity LED lighting, cut costs exponentially as well.

The food is 100% organic and wonderful.

Just a thought.

~Tenth