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Duckponics
Here’s something you might not have considered. Duckponics. It may not be for everyone, but if you keep ducks and you want to do aquaponics without fish then perhaps you might consider this interesting alternative. Aleece Landis better know as TCLynx on various aquaponics forums apart from running fish and vegetable systems decided to apply her knowledge of aquaponics to cleaning the water for her growing menagerie of chickens and ducks by running the fowled water in her “duck pond” through her gravel growbeds and raise a...
read moreSmall Space Aquaponics Feeds the Community
In a corner of a typical urban shopping centre tucked away in Florida sits what looks like a tiny service lane way. Except behind the timber gates is an entry into another world. Its been transformed into something else. A maze of pvc pipes run by a small pump and powered by goldfish is growing all kinds of aquaponic produce. Builder and designer Sahib Punjabi enthuses about aquaponics and especially Murray Hallam when we arrived to see his system. Sahib reaches over and shakes Murray Hallam’s hand. “I want to teach this right...
read moreAquaponics: Tips to Selling your Produce at Farmers Markets
Although many people get into aquaponics for the fun of growing fish and plants together, they soon realize the potential that aquaponics could offer them. “Going Commercial” is the hot topic on Aquaponics Forums as people consider the possibility of selling their surplus produce or even building a larger more commercial system to sell their fresh clean food. The plunge to go head first into a business venture could prove disastrous if people don’t research their business model properly. Anne Forsthoefel spoke recently at...
read moreAttending the 2011 Aquaponics Conference
Its a long 16,000 kilometer flight from Brisbane Australia, but we finally made it with Murray Hallam to Orlando Florida to attend the 2011 Aquaponics Association Conference. The three day event organized by Sylvia Bernstein and Gina Cavaliero was originally meant to attract around 100 people interested in learning more about Aquaponics. That figure quickly doubled to make it a truly international event with around 255 people packing the ballroom of the Holiday Inn at Disney World. Small Scale Commercial Aquaponics The theme that we quickly...
read moreDIY High Protein Fish Food from Algae
Growing your own fish food for aquaponics is the holy grail for many folk wishing to be autonomous and not dependent on commercial fish food pellets. Duckweed Growing duckweed in your own tank is one solution during the warmer summer weather. Its not an algae but a very small aquatic plant. Because the water in an aquaponics system is rich in nutrients, it is well suited to also grow duckweed which is 30% to 40% rich in protein providing the water is undisturbed and slightly shaded. Many fish will readily eat this tiny plant that doubles in...
read moreMonsanto versus the Beetle
This story is almost a parable of two worlds, a battle between the natural and the man-made. Like a boxing match, in the one corner we have Monsanto – a large company aided by big money and big investment, tinkering away in the science labs, discovering even more devious ways to develop the perfect pest resistant strain of GM corn that can be easily marketed and harvested to a massively large over-subsidized monoculture industry. The one aim is to develop the perfect food stuff that can’t be attacked by pests or disease. Sounds...
read morePlants that go crazy in Aquaponics
We all have our favorites. Plants that defy normal growth and even gravity and just take off like a rocket in an aquaponics system. They crowd out other plants and just keep refusing to stop growing. They either take off up into the heavens or spill over the sides and tumble onto the ground and trip you over as you walk past. This is by no means an authoritative post on the subject. It may even be totally wrong in your experience because of your different climate zone. But the following list of plants are the sort of plants that we’ve...
read moreCreating Abundance in School Gardens
Over the last few months we’ve been filming every few weeks with Leonie Shanahan the evolution of a school garden located in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Turning a drab bit of school grass into a permaculture paradise is all in a day’s work for Leonie because every Friday she turns up at this Pacific Paradise school to teach kids about growing their own food. Today the boys were scrambling around under the floor of the timber school rooms hunting for weeds. Its amazing to see what looks like a dull chore – pulling up...
read moreChicken Tunnels
Although allowing your chickens to free-range a great idea, getting them to just stay on the grass and not destroy your garden is not an easy thing to do. They don’t seem to listen and wander about blissfully digging up your garden, making mounds in your vegetable patch, spraying dirt all over the place as they go hunting for bugs, worms and insects. In a previous post we mention creating a series of wire “tunnels” that emerge from the chicken coop and direct chickens to work zones around the garden. The tunnels are like a...
read moreAquaponics: Root-bound Tomatoes
We’ve had a terrific season of growing tomatoes for the last eight or nine months and right through into the Queensland winter. The one vine we had just kept producing massive amount of tomatoes month after month. I must admit being a bit cautious about what the flavour of an aquaponically grown tomato would be like. Would it tasty watery and lacking in flavour? We can assure you if you choose a good old fashioned variety the tomatoes you grow will outclass anything you can buy in the shops. Hands down the flavour of aquaponically grown...
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