Aquaponics has 2 inputs: water to replace that which evaporates (around 5% per month maybe), and fish food. When fish poop into the water, the poop contains nitrogen, which serves as fertilizer for your plants.
Making your own fish food
Fish food is cheap, and of course you can grow plants that can serve as fish food. What's important is the bacteria in the poop, because they take nitrogen from the air and put it in the water, making it available to the plants.Or you can raise chickens, and feed their poop to the fish. Then you can raise corn and feed that to the chickens. That way you won't have to buy fish food. The problem is that unless the chicken poop directly into the water, your setup can get a bit smelly. Maybe you can raise ducks instead, because ducks live in water... some of the time. Then maybe I can sell the duck eggs. Ducks are hardy and don't get sick easily.
Or you can feed kitchen scraps to the fish. And / or the ducks. =D Maybe you can choose a fish that are good at eating vegetables and meal scraps. Like perhaps catfish, which are scavengers. Or shrimp. Catfish and generally all scavengers (including ducks) are hardy and resistant to disease.
About growing corn and feeding that to chickens, corn produces a lot of hay. Hay is good if you have cows, otherwise you're wasting a lot of energy if you take your energy from indoor lighting. (On second thought, you can use hay as compost material.)
So much complexity just to avoid buying commercial, chemical laden fish food. Maybe I'll just go with the fish food plus kitchen scraps in the beginning. =D
This article chronicles my journey of learning aquaponics from youtube. I'll be posting the videos I find very helpful and educational.
Hydroponics Growing System Homemade PVC for Beginners
This video shows a hydroponics system during the first quarter of the video. At the 2nd quarter, the narrator starts to speak about agriculture as an investment. He says ain investment of $606 in PVC pipes and other equipment will allow you to grow 800 crops in a very small area indoors. Used to plant peppers, this can give you $10,000 in profit every 3 months "if you're lucky", he says. What he says next blew me out of the water. =D
He says
"Maybe you'll find that peppers are a kind of currency and you can become POWERFUL in your neighborhood." LOL!
"Money may not be safe in the bank, and if you're looking for a banking system that grows your money fast and doesn't give others direct access to your account without due process of law, maybe this is the haven you've been looking for. When you put your money into THIS bank, there is no inflation, because the federal reserve can't devalue your life savings by counterfeiting money with theyr QE1, QE2, QE3, QE4, QE5 baloney.
Why do I look at this as an investment? BECAUSE THERE IS GROWTH. I like growth. I NEVER SAW ANYTHING GROW VALUABLE FASTER THAN A SEED.
Amazing words. Anyway, this can get you started if you have no idea what hydroponics is.
The next lesson is about Aquaponics, or using fish to fertilize your plants.
What is a CHOP Aquaponics System?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8XrnzTc-sgCHOP means (Constant Height One Pump). It's a simple way to get water from your aquarium into your grow beds and back.
This video is made by Leafy Gills, which is the educational outreach program of PerfectGardens.com. Perfect Gardens sells agricultural / aquaponics equipment, and their store is a great way to acquaint yourself with the equipment. Their website also provides help for beginners.
What is Aquaponics? How it Works & Why an Aquaponic Setup Can Fail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z1kozprw8YThis is a 30 minute video set in Hawaii. They got fed up with stale food shipped from California, so they grew their own. Anyway this video shows how aquaponics can fail. Important information before you start investing in fish, which can be expensive, and which can die if you do it wrong.
Something mentioned here is the Green Malbar Spinach which is a perennial edible vegetable, which means it doesn't die after one season / harvest, and you can harvest it regularly without replanting it.
Another thing mentioned is root rot, which happens to plants which are not used to so much water. Roots rot when roots can't breathe, that is, when they're constantly submerged. To combat this, there's this thing called a Bell Siphon Valve which is explained somewhere around 12 minutes into the video.
For more videos like this, visit https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUnFheTbVpASikm0YPb8pSw
How to make a DIY Aquaponics System, MADE in the Philippines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o_LPpF74iI#t=424This video shows how to put together a small aquaponics system from start to finish.
There's a ton of information out there in youtube. I could spend months just learning it all. Here's more.
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