Tuesday 1 January 2008

AQUAPONICS - A 2008 PROJECT



I have read a lot about aquaponics and seen it working on Landline. It could be a great way for urbanites to garden and provide fish for themselves, in a small space without soil or in areas with difficult soil / water conditions. I would love to try it as an extra to the regular vegetable garden.




Aquaponics is the creation of a complete cycle of symbiotic relationships where the fish help plants and the plants help fish.
Aquaponics uses no chemicals, requires one tenth of the water needed for field plant production and only a fraction of the water that is used for fish culture. (Aquaculture)
This is truly a remarkable system, because it works so well. The fish actually supply nutrients to a bed of plants, (called Grow Beds) and plants clean up the water that the fish live in, making a mutual beneficial environment for both. The only external input to the system is food for the fish. The plants grow in a Grow Bed.



Read more at: Aquaponics


At left - a system in progress at Linda's house


I have added a link to this under local and Australian links too as I think it deserves ongoing consideration.

3 comments:

Maggie said...

We have some barramundi in the freezer which came from Urrbrae Agricultural High School, harvested in December. Farmed fish is not my 1st choice but with polluted oceans, who knows?. Anyway it tastes good, has firm flesh and is much better than store bought fish.
I must go to their next open day and check out their production.
Ferguson Australia sells frozen fish and seafood. I first met them at the Adelaide Farmers market where we were able to buy freshly caught fish from Kangaroo Island from them. I am sure they are not their now. They do however sell their frozen products through Romeo's Mitcham and Norwood Foodland. Before this I was buying fish from New Zealand until I realized that the fish was from NZ but was being frozen and packed in Malaysia, too many food miles for me.

gardengal said...

ooohhh! Aquaponics has been buzzing around in our heads too.
I had this brilliant idea to convert the strawberry patch to hydroponics (thus defeating the millipedes in one fell swoop) and then put a fish tank on the terrace below but then I realised it really needs to be in shade and running power for the pump to it would be very expensive. Myabe it could go in the front under the ash tree. Still pondering!

adelaideaquaponics said...

We have just started retailing domestic and commercial aquaponics kits in South Australia. For more information please visit www.adelaideaquaponics.com.au