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  • From: Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] pc aquaponics
  • Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 16:08:42 -0700 (PDT)

Wow, Kathyrn, Thank you so much for sharing this! I have been trying to find
out info about how seawater works with plants and doing some (very limited
and not very controlled) experimenting - there is another person in my town
who is doing more concentrated experimentation. It has made sense to me that
the trace minerals in sea water would provide many if not all of our mineral
needs. Just think how much seawater there is. LOL. As Mollison says, the
solutions are embarrassingly simple. I've had people tell me, oh, you can't
use sea water because of the salt; it's too expensive to remove it (just
based on assumption, no actual experience). But the person doing
experimentation is having good results with seaweed (steeped in sea minerals)
as soil amendment without washing out the salt and my limited experience has
been positive as well. I'm forwarding your write up to my experimenting
friend, a friend who is doing saltwater aquaponics and to the person who
is doing fish farming in the ocean. Will share anything that is shared with
me. 
 
Koreen Brennan

www.growpermaculture.com
www.facebook.com/growpermaculturenow
www.meetup.com/sustainable-urban-agriculture-coalition


________________________________
From: "KAKerby@aol.com" <KAKerby@aol.com>
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Tuesday, October 9, 2012 12:50 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] pc aquaponics

Koreen, my Dad grew up in Florida, after moving their as a boy from 
Illinois.  He lived on both Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and we've been there 
many
times to visit extended family who still live in the Ft. Lauderdale  area. 
I, on the other hand, grew up along the Front Range of the Rockies,  where
water was such a scarcity, all the time.  I remember my first trip to 
Florida, and I didn't even marvel at the beaches or the sun or the warmth. 
But
rather, the greenery and the WATER.  Oh, you folks seemed wealthy in  water! 
Only later was I to learn that water is actually as precious in  Florida as
it is just about everywhere else.

There was a brilliant man named Maynard Murray, MD, who in the  mid 20th
centuries got to wondering about using seawater for agriculture.  He started
doing experiments on the side, bringing in railroad cars of seawater  to his
native Ohio and applying the seawater in varying amounts, at varying 
concentrations and dilutions, straight to farmland.  His theory was that 
seawater is the great receptacle of nutrients (good, bad and otherwise as we 
have
since learned).  His work as a physician exposed him to a tremendous  amount
of nutrient deficiency and the health issues that arise from nutrient 
imbalance in the human body.  One of his leaps of brilliance was that we 
shouldn't be fertilizing the plant, but rather fertilizing the soil.  A 
subtle
but crucial difference, which has since been seconded and built upon by 
other
brilliant people.  Another leap of brilliance on his part was that  the
human body has much the same preferred ratios of nutrients, that seawater 
has,
in terms of nutrient ratios in combination with each other.  Other 
scientists of the time (and even now) were looking for that magic bullet to 
solve
all the problems, or looking for single answers to solve single  problems. 
He was one of the first to document that when you provide all  the
nutrients, in the correct ratios to each other, even at very weak dilutions 
overall,
the body rises into a state of health previously only dreamt of.  But his
genius didn't end there.  He knew from his formal scientific  training that
no one would ever believe his theories even with the research he  was able
to do on his own.  So yet another brilliant notion he had was to  engage the
assistance of the various land grant universities in his upper  midwest area
(and eventually throughout the USA), to test his ideas right there  on the
farm.  Without going through the whole thing, farmers across the  board saw
better yields, less disease, less pests, greater livestock health, 
dramatically reduced incidence of pregnancy loss, newborn weakness, and
failure  to
grow.  Things like "the runt of the litter", which is such a rule in hog 
husbandry that folks just generally assume it'll happen (even today),
basically  evaporated under his nutrient supplementation guidelines.  And it
was
both  plants and animals, not just this-or-that crop or animal or particular
disease  issue. 

Now, why he didn't win a Nobel for that, I have no idea.  He already  was
centuries ahead of his time, and even today 70 years later a lot of folks 
have never heard of him.  But he wasn't done yet.  He was using more  and
more
water, shipped to him in railcars, that he eventually simply moved to 
....... FLORIDA........... to continue his research.  And when there, he 
grabbed onto the brand new idea of hydroponics as a stellar new way to bypass 
the
mistakes made by generations previously, and just jump right into building 
healthy, diversified cropping systems, right from the get-go.  So the rest 
of his career was spent working with and perfecting hydroponic methods,
based on  sea water as a source for most of the nutrients.  He wrote a single
book  about all his experiences, called Sea Energy Agriculture.  It went out
of  print for awhile but Acres USA brought it back, and it's still available
through  them.  When I read his little book (non-technical and can be
easily read in  a weekend) I remember thinking "why isn't everyone doing
this?????"  But  alas, some of our best pioneers call to us and amidst the
din of
life, we don't  hear them.

Now, right about the time I was looking to reading his book, I was also 
starting to hear mention of this thing called aquaponics.  And it  seemed
like a really interesting idea to me, because the strength of Dr.  Murray's
approach was to bring ALL the trace nutrients, in the correct balance,  into
the equation.  But what about the macronutrients?  His book  doesn't talk as
much about that.  Yet here's aquaponics, where the fish are  providing a lot
of the mactronutrients, but perhaps need the trace nutrients to  balance
out the approach.  It seemed to me a match made in heaven, because  this
would
be nearly a perpetual motion machine, as someone else mentioned  aquaponics
is sometimes marketed as.  But this time, the ingredients aren't  merely
showing up magically out of thin air. Instead, they are all around us, 
covering 70% of the earth's surface, provided by the motion of the planet and 
the
living systems already in place.  All we have to do is marry the two 
ideas. 

I'm sure it's a lot more involved than that, and I would dearly love to 
spend an inordinate amount of time fussing with it to see if I could get it
to
work.  To my knowledge, no one has experimented with this enough that 
they've worked out all the kinks, then made that information public 
knowledge.
Sadly, this is where the trail went cold for me  personally.  I did follow
up with Dr. Murray's research, and apparently a  relative (son, brother,
something along those lines) took his research into the  marketplace, and
<sadly, or even tragically> protected a lot of the last  30 years' worth of
research as proprietary information, which folks can buy via  their product
line.  But as for information in the public realm?  Nope.

So that's as much information as I have on the topic of marrying seawater 
to crop/livestock nutrition, whether in soil-based or soilless media 
systems.  It seems to me there is tremendous potential there, but I don't 
know if
anyone is looking into it.  One of the things I love about the 
permaculture culture (if I can call it that) is the notion of shared
information  for
public benefit.  I think if there was ever a community of folks to take  this
idea and run with it, it would be the PC community.  I wish I could  grab
this idea myself and really work it through its paces.  I'm sure I'll  play
with it on a small scale at some point.  But I think this is at least  one
potential bright shining dawn.  An end to mined minerals from  Location A,
then shipping them to Location B, to put them right back into the  ground
again.  We'd still have to ship the minerals from the coast to the  inland
areas,
but perhaps there are kinder gentler ways to do so?  And in  what
proportions?  All those discoveries await.......
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA


In a message dated 10/9/2012 4:52:40 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, 
cory8570@yahoo.com writes:

Thank  you for sharing Kathryn and Pierre. I live in Florida where much of
the "soil"  is in fact sugar sand. Even in relatively old forests, the sand
content of the  soil is significant. One of the problems we deal with here
is finding plants  that 1. are palatable and 2. have nutrition that can grow
in sugar  sand.

Most of us in the state spend a lot of time and effort  building soil
artificially, above the sand, and figuring out ways to prevent  it from
sinking
into the sand and disappearing in our baking hot summers. We  use
hugulkulture, biochar, lots of organic matter (like wood chips, which come 
from the
"waste stream", as they would otherwise go into the landfill) of  (often) old
growth trees cut down in our city. We take seaweed off the beach  for
minerals, and the impact is minimal, but again, at some point, if urban ag 
gets
big enough, we will impact ecosystems if we continue to do that. We  scrounge
for manure, in cities where keeping farm animals and chickens is  closely
regulated or illegal (and humanure is a huge solution here, in one of  the
most densely populated counties in the US, but there is a lot of  resistance
on personal and policy levels still). 

Beached seaweed  in Florida is almost an ecosystem in its own right, with
various creatures,  including migratory birds, dependent upon it. Those of us
who are looking from  a systems viewpoint are asking questions about how we
are going to produce  enough fertile soil, using only our local organic
matter without imports, to  feed our populations in Florida.

We are surrounded by water and ocean  fish, but the seafood populations
around here have already been severely  depleted. We are fortunate to not
have
to deal with the Corexit poisoning or  "Dead Zone" created by Midwest
agriculture in the Gulf - the ocean currants  keep that away from us, for the
most
part. But other coastal areas in the Gulf  have quite a problem on that
front.

Going fishing is a short  term, small solution but not a long term solution
for the whole population. We  do have dozens of lakes and ponds in the area
and could explore systems that  integrate with existing pond ecosystems,
like islands (I'd love to talk to  someone who is doing that successfully). 

We have some  experimental ocean fish farms happening in the area (fish
raised in protected  cages in the ocean), which makes sense if you're going
to e
nclose fish. They  get all their minerals and some of their food naturally.
If the farms get too  big, they will impact the coastline ocean ecosystems.
The Eritrea system  sounds wonderful on many fronts - I like that they are
staying away from the  coastline which is such a vital and productive edge
in many places when left  to Zone 5.

Kathryn, is anybody using nutrients from seawater in  aquaponics, and if
so, how are they removing the salt and other things that  don't work in the
system? I've heard that there is some saltwater aquaponics  occurring which
might make a lot of sense near oceans where the minerals could  be easily
accessed.

I feel that it is vital that permaculturists  influence aquaponics. The
people I've spoken to are open to that. I attended  the aquaponics conference
in Florida last year, to see what it was all about,  and there were many
dedicated people working to improve the technology. I  didn't meet anybody
who
was totally closed off to the idea of integrating  permaculture principles
and a number of them had heard about permaculture and  were trying to use it
in some fashion. The head of the International  Aquaponics Association told
me that she is aware that they need to work on the  nutrition area to reduce
footprint (the fish food is ), and is interested in  doing so, as an
Association. I think we need to reach out, not draw back, and  bring the
principles
to the subject to make it as workable as possible. We  need a diversity of
solutions and aquaponics makes a lot of sense from a  number of angles, in
cities especially.

There is one situation -  if we figure out how to feed dense populations in
high rises, and if we figure  out how to produce renewable energy in high
rises or locally (like algae  fuels, hydrogen/solar combos, etc), judging by
history, we will continue  propagate and expand until the whole planet is
covered with us. But the fact  that permaculturists might see the downside to
that is not going to stop the  Aquaponics Association or the "free energy"
people from looking for those  solutions.

All of which make me feel that it is vital to continue  to educate people
and raise their ethics level and consciousness so we have  more people in all
sectors who can make "whole systems" decisions. And thank  you again
Kathryn for sharing with us information and viewpoints that help us  to
better
make those decisions. Sharing these viewpoints with each other will  only
make
our systems stronger, ultimately. I love doing team designs for that  reason
- inevitably, someone on the team thinks of something that no one else  did
and the design is the better for it. I'm thankful for permaculture email 
lists where this kind of conversation can happen.

Best,  Koreen


www.growpermaculture.com
www.facebook.com/growpermaculturenow
www.meetup.com/sustainable-urban-agriculture-coalition


________________________________
From:  Pierre Marx <pierremarx@ymail.com>
To: permaculture  <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 9, 2012  12:02 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] pc aquaponics

Oops, should have  read Kathryn's response first before chiming in. Well
said  Kathryn.

Cheers

Pierre  Marx




>________________________________
>From:  "KAKerby@aol.com" <KAKerby@aol.com>
>To:  permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
>Sent: Tuesday, 9 October 2012 12:45  PM
>Subject: Re: [permaculture] pc aquaponics
>
>OK, I've  been gone for a number of hours, a bunch of emails on this topic
 
>have come in, and I'd like to address some of these statements  in  turn. 
>But it'll be in summary form, so hopefully no one  takes  offense that I'm
>just trying to answer things as quickly  as possible.
>
>First, aquaponics is most definitely an aerobic  setup.  The claims  made
>about faster growth are precisely  because aquaponics is MUCH MORE aerobic

>than standard soil-based  farming.  The roots are exposed to much greater 
rates
>and  volumes of gas exchange, so poor gas exchnage is no longer a 
>bottleneck for plant growth rates.  That exchange rate can be  varied 
depending on
>both the system design and the cycling  rate.  One of the three  major
>hydroponic and aquaponic  methods, known as flood-and-drain, features  a
container of 
>planting media and intact plants which is repeatedly flooded,  then
>drained, then flooded again, at whatever cycle is appropriate for  the 
plants.  So
>you could have system conditions ranging  from near-saturation  to
>near-desert rates of moisture for the  root zone, whatever the plants 
need.  With that
>system,  each new influx of water fills the container, thus  driving out
any 
>atmosphere (mix of O2, CO2 and N2 and trace elements) from the  root
zone. 
>That "flood" stage is generally the shorter of the  two  phases.  The
longer
>"drain" stage draws atmosphere back  down deep into the  root zone, for a
>dramatically faster gas  exchange rate than would ever occur in 
soil-based
>growing.  The other two most popular setups, Nutrient Flow  Technique and

>Floating Raft Technique, generally feature part of the root mass 
submerged, and
>part of the root mass in an extremely high-humidity  but  non-submerged
>atmosphere.  So again, there's no  drowning or  anaerobic conditions.  If
a hydro-
>or  aquaponics system ever goes  anaerobic, something is very dramatically

>wrong.
>
>Second, I concur wholeheartedly that soil is a  precious commodity, and 
>should be treasured as such.  So  the comment that someone was turned off
by 
>seeing a photo of an  aquaponics system in the foreground, then very tidy 
>inedible  landscaping in the background, is a philosophical objection I
would 
>share.  However, I have to point out that it wasn't a valid  indicator on
>whether aquaponics can or cannot be part of a  sustainable  setup. 
Rather, it
>was merely an indication of  that particular person's  taste in
landscaping. 
>You could  take that same setup, and put it in a poor  village in some
distant 
>poverty-stricken nation, and perhaps feel better about  the fact  that
it's
>feeding everyone in the village.  Same system.  And  there are countless
>variations on that system to match up  with needs all around  the world. 
So if
>some aquaponics fan  had a front yard that didn't meet up  with your
personal 
>preferences for landscaping, that's hardly an indictment  against  the
>approach as a whole.
>
>Also on the topic of soils, I  would point out that merely having access
to 
>soils does not  guarantee that folks can grow what they need, as much as
>they  need, and when they need it, on those soils.  Or even if they could
  grow
>what they need during ideal years, conditions might be so  unpredictable 
>that they couldn't count on those soils to produce  what they need, year
after 
>year.  We live in one of the  most productive agricultural areas of the 
>world.  We are  greatly blessed that we can work with both forested and
rich 
>fertile floodplain soils.  We have a mild climate, with a nice  long
growing 
>season.  But even here, there are things we  can't grow reliably,
including 
>staples like corn and  alfalfa.  Try feeding 100 head of livestock without

>those  two staples, and you'll be up at night trying to balance your feed 
>ration  with whatever you can scrounge instead.  Been there,  done that. 
We  are
>very fortunate to be able to go out and  buy those materials when we can't

>grow them.  But other  families and other farms in other places aren't 
nearly
>that  lucky.  They must eat from whatever they can grow.  Even  when  the
>soils are just right in terms of fertility, tilth, moisture,  temperature
and
>solar exposure, one storm, one flood, one early frost  or late  frost or
any
>other combo of "bad luck" events, can wreck  the crop.  In some  fortunate
>parts of the world, that's not  a big deal.  We buy in what we  need to
replace
>what we  lost.  Other folks aren't so lucky, and they go  hungry. 
Aquaponics
>removes a lot of that variability.  That's why  we  want to use it here. 
It
>would be our backup for those  crops which are iffy  at best even in our
>prime agricultural  area.  And it will allow us to grow  some critical
crops 
>which, despite our near-ideal setup, we still can't grow  here.
>
>The question of equipment and volunteers and employees is  a complication,

>which ironically makes aquaponics shine even  brighter.  We are in WA
state, 
>USA.  It might surprise  folks to learn that we CANNOT have farm
volunteers 
>here.  It's against state law.  We can either have interns, that must  be

>enrolled in a public school and taking a class for credit in which we  are

>formal part of the curriculum, or we can have employees,  paid at least
>minimum  wage, and fully insured under our farm  insurance coverage plan. 
And now
>proposed federal law, which  didn't pass this year but very well might in
>the  future, states  that family members must be "immediate family", ie,
>spouse,  children and parents.  Cousins and aunts and uncles and 
>grandparents/grandkids, etc, would not be considered family, and thus 
would be  required to
>be hired, for at least minimum wage, with  full insurance coverage.  So as
>neat as it sounds to have some  big farm in the family, working that  farm
>requires some careful  thought because manpower is no longer quite so easy
to 
>access. 
>
>OK, so if we can't have lots of people,  let's get some large-scale 
>machinery in here instead.  Sadly, that's not very practical  either.  A
70hp
>tractor,  and all the implements listed in a previous  post, would cost
more than 
>our house is worth.  We have a 20 hp tractor  that was  manufactured the
same
>year my dad was born.  Our haying  equipment  was made when draft animal
>power was still in use in  the USA, and that equipment  can be drawn
either with
>our small  tractor or a team.  We shopped very  carefully for that 
>equipment, and saved a great deal of money, by buying smaller  than
everyone said
>we'd need.  We didn't finance any of it.  Yet  it still set us back quite
a bit
>financially, and we still  have repairs to make  before any of it is field
>ready.  So  yes, a lot of folks are having serious  problems getting into 
>farming, because even if they have access to land they  need  either
manpower or
>machinery to work it, and both of those options are  not  nearly as easy
to
>come by as they used to  be.
>
>Which brings us to aquaponics.  Because machinery and  manpower are  both
so
>expensive here, we have to make the  absolute best use of our  time, at a
>scale that we can reasonably  accommodate without either equipment or 
>employees.  One of  the major questions we're facing right now with this 
bigger 
>farm, is whether we want to take on all that extra work, knowing  that 
we'd have
>to have employees (thankfully, we'd have access  to their machinery 
instead
>of buying it ourselves).  But I  can produce the same products via 
>aquaponics that I manage by  myself, as I can with field crops requiring a
lot of 
>expensive  equipment and/or hired help.  That's because of two things. 
First, 
>it is so much more productive per square foot than any  soil-based 
system. 
>Second, it allows for harvests in small  batches, rather than  one
>all-or-nothing harvest.  I've  known of growers who raise just enough 
feed for their
>animals to  last one day with aquaponics.  They plant one  tray per day,
they 
>harvest one tray per day.  The rest of the trays are  growing and don't
>need to be messed with other than watering.  The manpower  is minimal,
and
>they're doing the work I'd have to  have machinery AND manpower  to
successfully
>harvest in the  field.  And that's only if the weather  cooperates.  If
the 
>weather doesn't cooperate, or the machinery breaks  down, or the  manpower
>quits or is busy or sick or otherwise unavailable, that  harvest rots. 
Shucks,
>that's too bad.  And most years, at  least one  of those issues comes
along.
>Try telling your family  that they don't get  to eat because the tractor
>blew a hydraulic  seal.  Aquaponics has its own  list of woes, but they
don't 
>tend to be quite so dramatic, so costly, or so  all-or-nothing in  scale.
>
>Finally, I know a lot of folks will puzzle about this  next question, but
we
>believe it is utter folly to farm with anything  less than profitable 
>outcomes.  We subscribe to the theory  that for any farm to be truly 
>sustainable, it must meet the  Three E's: Environmental, Ethical and 
Economical 
>Sustainability.  So everything we do here, is for the love  of the land
and love
>of the life, but it's also how we pay the  bills.  If  we can't pay the
bills,
>for instance if we  borrowed money to buy all that nice  big machinery, we
>won't be  farming very long.  And then all this nice talk  about
sustainable 
>this-n-that goes right out the window.  The next guy  comes  along and
>converts all this wonderful farmland into condos.  Or  a  junkyard for old
cars.  Or
>a landfill.  Or  whatever.  I know some  folks farm because they want to. 

>Some folks farm because they have to,  since they can't get food 
otherwise. 
>We farm because we feel called to do  so, but we  must meet those 3 E's in
>order to continue doing so for any  length of time.  Again, aquaponics
removes
>a lot of the  harvest  uncertainty, and thus the financial uncertainty,
from 
>this gig called  farming.  That means it's not merely a nice  tool in the
>toolbox.  For  us that means it's borderline  essential.  Farming without
it is
>riskier  than it needs to  be.
>
>I guess after all this, I would suggest that folks can  decide they're not

>interested in aquaponics, and that's  fine.  They can decide they don't
want 
>to use aquaponics,  and that's also fine.  They can decide wow there's
more 
>here than they realized, go learn about it, and maybe implement it or 
maybe
>not,  according to their own needs and interests.  All  that is fine. 
Where
>I tend to get twitchy, is when folks hear  the term "aquaponics", and they
>only  know a little about it, and  they start making assumptions about it,
>and then  they start  making opinions and decisions based on those
assumptions.
>Or  worse, start advising people based on those assumptions.  I would 
>strongly  encourage folks to learn about this approach before  forming
opinions
>about  it.  Don't just go with what you've  seen in the headlines, or on
>Youtube,  or heard someone say that  someone said that someone said that
it's just
>a bunch  of  hooey.  Either learn about it, and speak from a position of 
>knowledge  and experience.  Or simply say "well, I've heard  about it but
don't
>know  much about it, so I can't really  say."  That's all I ask.
>Kathryn  Kerby
>frogchorusfarm.com
>Snohomish,  WA
>
>
>
>In a message dated 10/8/2012 2:23:18 P.M.  Pacific Daylight Time, 
>dhondt@eircom.net  writes:
>
>
>My  problem with aquaphonics is not just  disolved chemicals aka
nutrients. 
>Soil is an ecosystem  consisting for at least ten % out of microorganisms 
>and 
>often a lot more. To a large extend these soil organisms are  aerobic.  It
>is
>as good as impossible to maintain a large  aerobic community in  water.
>john
>
>> On 10/7/2012  9:52 PM, Scott Pittman  wrote:
>>> I too have serious  misgivings about aquaponics.  It is  always
presented 
>>> as
>>> some kind of perpetual motion  machine that provides for all its needs
>>>  within
>>> the  system, which I doubt.  I also do not  believe that it could 
>possible
>>> have the  nutrients necessary for providing wholesome and  nutritious
>>> foodstuff.  We are talking about the  primary  nutrient source being
fish
>>> dung
>>>  in this closed  system, where does the selenium, calcium and
phosphorous 
>>>  come
>>> from?  The co-evolution of  plants with soil organisms  and minerals has
>>> created the  human nutrition story and without  soil I think the  actual
>>> nutrient content will be woefully  inadequate.
>>
>> I would never try to grow food for myself  in an  aquaponics system
unless
>> its nutrients came from  extracts of  soil-based systems (don't quite
know
>> how that  would work given the  anaerobic aspects of aquaponics systems.
I
>> did find through a Google  search a site with pictures of a  soil-based
>> aquaponics system but they  were growing  ornamental aquatic plants in
>> submerged perforated barrels  with a soil mix in them. The root crowns
of
>> the plants were  slightly  above water level.
>>
>>> I would love to  see some data on  nutrient content of hydroponic vs
soil
>>>  based  vegetables.
>>
>> There is probably no  comparison with the nutrient  dense food crops
grown
>> in  enriched soil with balanced nutrients and  minerals.
>>
>>> I would also point out that both the  rice paddy  system and chinampa
>>> systems
>>>  are soil based systems  with a lot of water to maintain growth they
are 
>>> not
>>>  by any means hydroponic or  aquaponic. You might also throw in the 
fast
>>> disappearing  mangroves as an example of aquaponics but again  you
would 
>be
>>> wrong.
>>
>> In Eritrea they are  developing  an array of sustainable farming systems
>> that use  sea water, They  impound water in lagoons and grow shrimp in
>>  them. That nutrient-rich  water is released down stream to fertilize 
and
>> irrigate salt-tolerant  land based crops. These crops are  used to human
>> as well as livestock  feed and to make rope or  cloth. They are also
>> propagating, planting  and harvesting  mangroves for firewood, livestock
>> feed and construction  wood. They are not reducing the populations of
>> mangroves along  the  coastline where their project is located. There is
a
>> PBS  documentary  about this well worth watching, maybe viewable online 
or
>> for $$$ for  the dvd.
>>
>>  LL
>>
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>From toby@patternliteracy.com Tue Oct 9 20:14:27 2012
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knH2QT62tpGAyp3I5vTxwCt3iLc0ryesNcSubject: Re: [permaculture] pc
aquaponics
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Thanks, Christopher. I, like most people, have a strong preference for
working in the dirt instead of using a bunch of tanks and pipes to grow food,
but, then, soil ag, too, is pretty mechanized these days.

To sum up: there is nothing special about soil, in one sense: it is a medium
for the propagation of the microbes that convert manure and other
non-available nutrients into plant-available nutrients, and it can hold water
and air. Same with water. Instead of a rock-based medium to hold microbes
and nutrients, aquaponics uses water as the medium, which is a nice stacking
of functions, if you think about it, because soil has to be kept wet for
microbes and plants to grow, while water doesn't, and most of the nutrients
that plants use are water soluble, converted into that form from insoluble
form by microbes. The carbon, the energy source for the microbes, is provided
by the OM in the fish manure instead of OM from insect frass and animal
manure.

And aquaponics has a couple of advantages over soil systems, because a water
medium can transport nutrients to microbes and plants much more quickly than
soil. In soil, water moves by diffusion, and once the water, or the nutrients
in it, are used up in one area, the organisms must wait for more to diffuse
in before they can feed or get moisture, and that can take time--and
sometimes it doesn't happen, and the plants or bugs die. Same with oxygen,
which can't travel well in compacted soil.

But in a water medium, nutrients are constantly being circulated to where
they are needed, as is air. That's one reason that growth rates in aquaponics
is much faster than in soil.

To make it clear: Aquaponics is not hydroponics plus fish. Hydroponics uses
water-soluble nutrients from the get-go, with no microbes in the mix.
Aquaponics, just like soil ag, relies on microbes to convert manure into
plant-available form. Big difference--the former is chemistry, the latter is
an ecosystem.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


On Oct 9, 2012, at 3:44 PM, christopher nesbitt wrote:

> Thank you, Toby, for your well written explanation of some of the biology
> behind aquaponics.
>
> Thank you, Kathryn, for taking the time to work to educate those who have
> misconceptions against aquaponics, and addressing each of their concerns so
> completely.
>
>
>
> _____________________________
> Christopher Nesbitt
>
> Maya Mountain Research Farm
> San Pedro Columbia, Toledo
> PO 153 Punta Gorda Town, Toledo
> BELIZE,
> Central America
>
> Country code 501-630-4386
>
> www.mmrfbz.org
> www.facebook.com/MayaMountainResearchFarm
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 9, 2012, at 3:51 PM, Toby Hemenway wrote:
>
>> Well-aerated, nutrient-rich water can grow vastly more microbes than any
>> soil. I used to run a fermentation lab, so I've done it, easily. This is
>> why wetlands are so important--and they work because wetland plants pump
>> out oxygen at far higher rates than most terrestrial plants, and nutrient
>> diffusion rates in water are far higher than in soil. Plus soil is mostly
>> rock or carbon, which displaces bacteria, while water doesn't displace
>> them--the sheer density of microbes in water can be far higher. The few
>> billion bacteria per gram of healthy soil are a fraction of what a healthy
>> wetland or an aquaponics system can achieve.
>>
>> Like any system, aquaponics is not appropriate for every situation. But in
>> places where land is scarce (cities), conditions are unreliable (many
>> places), technical resources are more available than soil, and a number of
>> other situations, aquaponics can allow food--and dense protein--to be
>> grown where it otherwise can't.
>>
>> You can get rid of fungi and other diseases more easily than in soil
>> because you can circulate a treatment through the entire system very
>> quickly or even replace the water, unlike soil.
>>
>> I'm grateful to Kathryn K for staying so level-headed and reasonable in
>> the face of some assumptions not well based in fact. I used to have a
>> strong prejudice against aquaponics, but it pretty well dissolved after I
>> learned more about it. I'm awfully fond of soil-based systems, but
>> aquaponics has its advantages in some places. It's a useful tool.
>>
>> Toby
>> http://patternliteracy.com
>>
>>
>> On Oct 9, 2012, at 2:19 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I was obviously too fast again when I called a water environment
>>> basically
>>> anaerobic. That would only be the case in a static situation. Moving
>>> water
>>> can have enough oxigen to enable salmon to perform very powerful leaps.
>>> However, if you had numbers of micro-organisms in water as high as in
>>> good
>>> soil your water would be anaerobic and it would look rather unclear and
>>> murky.
>>> Those huge numbers in soil are important because in a good ecosystem like
>>> good soil, bacteria and fungi have very much closer relations with plants
>>> than just turning amonia into nitrate. It is known that micro organisms
>>> exchange complex molecules like amino acids and vitamins (B12 has been
>>> known
>>> for this for decades) with plants for plant made sugar. In some places
>>> like
>>> India people used sugar as sole fertilizer and saw no lack of nitrogen. I
>>> can well believe that for I used Sitka spruce saw dust (with virtually no
>>> nitrogen) on top of rock and could not find nitrogen being a limiting
>>> factor. Of course we seldom have a problem with too little rain here in
>>> Ireland and that helps.
>>> Fungi/mycorrhizae live partly inside plant roots, exchange molecules and
>>> information and are known to protect plants from environmental stresses
>>> like
>>> acid rain and diseases caused by other fungi and bacteria.
>>>
>>> I love my soil ecosystems for they enabled me to get rid of potato blight
>>> and crucifer clubroot without any chemical intervention and even without
>>> rotating crops much for 20 years. What do you do when your aquaponic
>>> system
>>> develops a disease problem? You probably have a better chance in Tassie
>>> or
>>> the US but here in Ireland blight and other fungal spores are everywhere.
>>> Still, how would you solve disease if it occured?
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>>
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