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Aquaponics and Filtration
Filters seem to be the bane of many people’s lives as they seek out many creative ways to remove fish effluent and waste from the water returning back to the fish tank. Every day on Aquaponic forums people become obsessed with removing waste and seek out many ways to build extra plumbing into their system – large drum clarifiers, swirl filters, particulate filters, settling tanks to trap solids and prevent them from coming back. Dirty water – be gone! Solids are removed to make the water sparkling clean and habitable for the...
read moreHow long will Fish Pellets last?
Commercial Fish Pellets. How long do they last before they lose their nutritional value? Recently on the Aquaponics forums there was some speculation from people who found they were still using commercial fish pellets that were 18 months old and were still being fed to their fish. Some people insisting that their feed still looked good and appeared not to have aged or turned bad so it must have been good. Other folk challenged the notion and insisted that the fish pellets must have preservatives added to the feed in order to keep from...
read moreAquaponics and Insect Control
Running a successful Aquaponics system means being pesticide free because any poisons you spray will risk killing all your fish especially if the poisons drift onto the surface of the fish water. Whether you like it or not you will need to run your aquaponics system as a clean natural Eco-system. Which is good for your health and your bottom line especially as more consumers becoming aware of the quality of the food they want eat. This is fine in a small backyard aquaponics system with a mix of different crops, problems with insects are...
read moreAquaponics and Health
Recently we had the good fortune of discovering a book on our doorstep. It was a gift from Matt Kilby the tree man whom we wrote about recently. Matt is into planting forests of trees around Australia and after a recent health scare – is now into good health and sent us Victoria Boutenko’s “Green for Life” book. Her book deals basically in the health benefits of drinking blended green smoothies everyday and why you should seek to lower your bodies pH level to be more alkaline. Boutenko’s book goes on to explain...
read moreCommercial Aquaponics: What Plants are the most Profitable?
Recently a US dirt gardener decided to plant the most profitable plants per square foot of space and document their profitability on a chart. The chart was quite extensive but the top seven plants that were the best money spinners per square foot stopped us in our tracks. His conclusions made us think about commercial viability of aquaponics because the plants that proved to be the most profitable – all grow well in Aquaponics. Because aquaponics is so new, there aren’t a lot of commercial systems out there and those that are...
read moreBrown Blood: Nitrite Toxicity
Why do some fish remain hardy and almost bullet-proof and others die at the slightest disruption to their routine? We have in Australia a fish well suited to Aquaponics called the Murray Cod that has the reputation of being the sort of fish that dies at the most inopportune time in backyard aquaponics systems. Many people avoid stocking this fine eating fish in systems for that very reason. Not all fish are the same and some fish are finally tuned specimens that are unable to tolerate the ups and down of wild pH swings and sudden surges in...
read moreAquaponics FloMedia in Schools
Aquaponic Education in schools is taking off around the world but its not often you see a new hybrid technology installed that combines two very different aquaponics systems – floating raft and gravel media together in the one system. This aquaponics system pictured was recently installed at Freshwater Christian College near Cairns, Queensland. FloMedia It features Murray Hallam’s new FloMedia system that he devised that allows you to grow a variety of plants in the one setup. Murray says he’s been testing his Flomedia...
read moreRaising Aquaponic Seedlings for the Lazy
Ask most people why they got into Aquaponics and they’ll tell you that its about “food security” or eating “healthy food” or to maintain an interest in an “unusual hobby” and these are all valid points but the real answer when you dig a little deeper is that most people are bone lazy when it comes to pottering around in the garden, digging up weeds and all that back breaking work shifting compost and mulching stuff around. The real reason is that most people with a passion for Aquaponics tell you...
read moreCommercial Aquaponics: Why you should go small first
There’s been a lot of interest about commercial aquaponics recently and some discussion about how big should such a system be to become viable? Big is always best right? Not necessarily. If you envisage one of those broad acre hydroponic farms that seems to run for acres and acres off into the distance then you might be surprised that this is not the solution or even the future of aquaponics. Speaking with Murray Hallam recently about commercial aquaponics, he sees this future very differently. Murray is big on small scale aquaponics...
read moreSeeing the Soul of the Soil
Imagine for a moment that you could walk around your garden, your compost heap or even your pasture and get a direct reading that could tell you the health of your soil? Sounds implausible? Well, Mexican bio-fertiliser expert Eugenio Gras came to Australia recently to show farmers how to do their own soil tests using a little known biodynamic technique called The Chromatograph. “The Chromatograph is a picture of how the minerals, microbe and organic matter worlds interact together.” he says. Its not about just counting microbes...
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