This blog will document my efforts with Aquaponics.
Aquaponics combines Hydroponics, or soiless gardening, with Aquaculture, or fish cultivation. Its appealing to me because I live in Arizona and water is scarce, but space is not. One primary advantage to Aquaponics is that it uses very little water because the water is recycled. The figure I read was that Aquaponics systems use 2% of the water of traditional farming, which I think is a reasonable number given what I know about it.
So Im starting small... I bought a second-hand aqaurium with 4 frogs and a bunch of goldfish ($25). Its a 20 gallon tank and it sits on a table near a window sill. I also purchased a small pond pump that will move the water into the plants which will sit on top of the aquarium. Hopefully I can set it up so that the plants are also an environement for the frogs. Total time spent on this project is about 1 hour.
Eventually I want to set up a vegetable and fish garden in my backyard. I want to make this house virtually self sufficient to 1) prove it can be done, 2) increase the value of the house, 3) make a nice home environment, 4) promote sustainable and appropriate technologies. It is possible to set this up to meet all the food needs of a family of six, and its power requirements are relatively low. A/C is my biggest concern at this point, the system has to survivie 100F+ temperatures in the summer. It think my best option is swamp cooling. Eventually I want to run the solution all over my property and make the whole thing green using only one water unit.
Hello Wizkid,
ReplyDeleteI'm looking to build some kind of aquaponics system here in Phoenix in about a year or so and trying to understand this envirnoment. I had a system in CA about 10 years ago which I enjoyed, we called it a water garden at that time, but same deal.
Having sold the property in CA I can tell you that people in general did not see such a system as a plus. There were a couple that liked it but I would not say it added value. I scaled back the system greatly to make it less overwhelming.
Having said that however a sytem that was basically for landscaping and was very simple and proven to use little water could be a plus to a fair amount of buyers. Of course most still like a rock yard and zero maintance.
I look forward to reading more about your experiences. It is so much different here in Phoenix that most info out there really doesn't apply. And most of my previous experience also doesn't apply unfortunately.