Home-sized Aquaponics
Submitted by fyl on Wed, 2011/12/21 - 18:44.
I previously posted a message that I was looking for aquaponics supplies in Nicaragua. Well, I have now gone from thinking about to actively wanting to develop something. If you are interested in growing own food, you may want to come play.
First, I created a group at http://steprojects.com/groups/profile/76/aquaponics-for-the-people where three of us in Nicaragua are chatting about the general idea. I personally want to design a small-scale system that would be reasonable for a single family. It is something that would be suitable for a rural farmer, generally off-grid. I am not looking for a profit here—I just want to come up with an appropriate solution in Nicaragua.
If you are interested in working on the design and/or have some useful information about sources of equipment, supplies and such, I encourage you to join the STEProjects group. If you are just interested in a package that would mean you could buy, set up and run something at home, I encourage to at least chip in with a comment here. While my primary interest is to produce something that makes sense for folks that are not going to be participating on NL, interest here will help me scale my efforts.
Aquaponics
aknica Here's a little help for you on building a simple cheap home aquaponic system with a couple of the blue 55 gallon plastic barrels.. you might buy the pump fron a ferreteria or from a marine hardware store. Fitting are common PVC pipe
This website. has good detailed fotos and explanation for building it yourself........
http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/education/documents/barrel-ponics.pdf
cistern
i am more interested in a cistern or multiple cisterns connected together....
and i liked this post: "These dudes can be found for sale on the Car. Norte in the places that sell used barrels and such. It is about a cubic meter (rough measure 110cm x 90 cm x 1m high). It says Time Mauser on the plastic. No clue what they had in them of whether it is food grade plastic (as if anyone in Nicaragua seems to think about that). As I remember, I paid C$2500 for this 2 years ago.It happens to fit nicely into the back of my pickup which is a big plus."
can that be used as a cistern? or something better?
"Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'sir' without adding, 'you're making a scene." -Homer J. Simpson
Yes but ...
The Rotoplas (CR) or Nica equivalent water tanks are not that expensive and have the following advantages:
The "usual" sizes for the water tanks are 1100 to 2500 liters. Thus, one big one of those is 2.5 times the size of the IBC.
thanks....
i think i want to bury mine..... i have a postage stamp lot, so space is at a premium....
so i liked that metal cage around it.... being from the usa, cisterns are new to me.... well except for the george foundation property that has an old cistern on it.......
Not that it isn't too late to block the tilapia plague...
....but a guy here puts small local catfish in his water tank at home (large one) and raises them until they're about a foot long before eating them.
Rebecca Brown
Hi Phil I am very interested in this...here is someone doing it
http://www.livingmandala.com/Living_Mandala/Aquaponics_Permaculture_Inte...
they offered a course earlier in December...I did not attend though :( but they may have contacts or information on how to build/buy the tanks, filters, pumps, etc. If you need anyone to run around and get parts here in Managua you can count on my help. I would like to learn how to do this and then install a system at my farm. Totally makes sense and would be such a boon to the people here!
Doors of hope fly open when doors of promise shut. -Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Aquaponic training courses
Please be very careful when looking at sites or individuals who offer Aquaponic training courses. Beacause of the boom in interest in Aquaponics their are a lot of ppl who are making money off of courses and say they can teach you how to go commercial. First question you should ask these ppl is where is there commercial farm? How much are they producing? Unfortunately, most of these people have never operated or could operate a commercial facility. Beware of people selling books on the internet. A lot of that material is avaible for free and ALL of the photos have been stolen. If you want infomation check out the different forums.....BYAP (backyard aquaponcs) or Aquaponic gardening and take a look around. Also, Aquaponics is not that easy. If you want to build a system build a small system first so you can learn and understand the process. I have several degrees in biology and have been operating small systems for several years and I still don't know everything. This will be the same advice you get from people highly respected in the field.
I appreciate that
I notice you joined on steprojects.com. Great news. Note that we have a friend who does a Estelí->Managua->Esteli bus run every day and has a few hours to wait in Managua so if you can do the "running" and get it to him, we should have a good working deal.
I am leaning toward using IBCs for the system which are available cheap. Other equipment I am not sure about yet.
Anyway, join the club. I think this can be a big for all of us in Nicaragua including locals.