Aquaponics and Grow Domes

[mkrepel]

Aquaponics is a system for growing vegetables in a hydroponic environment, but the water is provided from a fish tank. The symbiotic relationship between the fish and the garden is fantastic if you can believe the reports. One quoted 50kg (110 lbs) of fish and 100kg (220lbs) of vegetables harvested from a system containing about 500 gallons of fish tank and 20 square feet of grow beds every 6 months. This is done using 1/10th of the water required for a normal garden (per sq ft, I believe) and a fraction of the water that is normally used for aquaculture (fish farming).

Has anyone tried this? Has anyone thought about or tried using this system in a monolithic grow dome? I have a theory that this system coupled with LED grow lights in a building with a controlled environment could create the ultimate solution to feeding a family or possibly get a handle on the global hunger problem. For those of you who are not familiar with the use of these lights to shorten growing time for vegetables, start with David South's blog on monolithic grow cabins.

Mike

[DBS]

Thank you Mike:

I think you are right. There will be the use of these technologies or there will be a lot of starving people. The symbiotic growing of both the fish and the plants will be more efficient. Consider burning the trash from the food for co2 for the plants. After extracting food for the fish. And then using the effluent from the fish to help grow the next batch of food. It can all work together.

We are slowly making progress. But it will happen. Both at our level and at a national level and an international level.

[mkrepel]

David,

Thank you for your reply. I know you mentioned some of this in your blog posts. That is where I got some of the ideas. Upon reflection, I realized I almost repeated some of that word for word. That was not my intent!

I have been doing some independent study/research on aquaponics and got excited about the possibilities of that technology alone. Then I remembered your posts on grow domes and using LED lighting. I suspect that there is not a directly additive relationship when we combine timed LED lighting with the fish/vegetables synergy, but I bet the results are even more impressive than either technology by itself.

My current plans are to build a small aquaponics setup in my garage using 55 gallon plastic barrels in an insulated box (8'x8'x8') to control temperatures (I live in Alaska!). Search BarrelPonics at Google, if you are interested. I think it will all fit in a 6'x6' area. If it works well, I plan to expand the setup and house it in a separate building. I just cannot see a permanent installation in such a small space, but that is all the room i have in my current garage. Taking over the entire garage in our climate is just not an option. I am seriously considering a MD Cabin for this application. We will see how the finances look by then.

Mike