What you're describing is a classic permaculture aquaculture system
with fertigation loop added in, right? The water plants in the fish
pond would filter the pond and provide additional food, and you could
add more fish in the pond because some of their poop would be removed
to fertigate your veggies. Then you would need to replace pond water
via rainwater catchment, filtered and sent through flow forms or
other oxygenation. This system uses more water, but wondering how
close could it get to the efficiency of aquaponics? Another type of
loop that Growing Power uses is to pot plants, run water under the
pots and let it wick up, filter it, and send it back to the fish. I
would put it through a wetlands filter with edible wetland plants
rather than an artificial filter. I plan to try this type of system
on a small scale in our yard. Would love to hear from others who are
doing similar things.
So, where do fish get their minerals in the wild? Why couldn't we
replicate that, just as we replicate soil building or anything else?
It's simply a design challenge, right?
Tilapia are vegetarians so would have to get the right combo of
nutrition to them. That is why most places feed them prepared food
that is balanced and tested for what they need (including minerals).
Some people are growing duckweed, azolla, etc, in separate ponds (the
fish will eat every last morsel otherwise, nothing left to create new
baby azollas)
but how do you get the minerals in, would be the design
question. In the wild, minerals come into the pond/stream systems,
microbial life, and up the food chain. Could one add sea minerals or
rock minerals to the water? Sourcing the minerals can be energy
intensive, or not.
The Chinampas system is really excellent. It is used not only in Mexico but also in the Andes and in many Asian countries (Burma comes to mind).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211926412000112
What lessons are there from Mollison's aquaculture/chinampas system
at Tagari?
Could wastewater be a part of the loop, in cities? Balance is the
trick in aquaponics. Too much of anything creates a surplus which
becomes pollution and creates negative feedback. From that view, it's
a good system to observe and learn about negative feedback loops on.
http://www.mekarn.org/MSc_CTU/literature/cheng%20et%20al%202009.pdf
** You are what you eat. In principle the aquaponics is much better
from a carbon footprint point of view and a lack of pesticide
residues but a person has to get complete nutrition. Unless I am
shown otherwise I can't see aquaponics providing all a person needed
year after year, only part of what you need. You will have to get the
rest from soil grown crops. Why can't you irrigate outdoor gardens
with part or all of the aquaculture effluent? Do both on the same
site, one backs up the other, all are "locally grown", low carbon
footprint.
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