Kevin Feinstein II

Sweet potatoes, Hardy yams, pokeweed, lemon balm, goldenrod, hoja santa

Has anyone tried cutting back the vines during the growing season? Sometimes the weeds get out of hand and often I have them pots and they quickly grow crazy in a tangle, and often I have thought of hacking them back. Wonder how that would affect tuber production?  

Mark Reed wrote:

I do have space for a much larger pond but haven't had the time and finances to put it together, and still, there is the issue of needing an electric pump. I've experimented a little bit with white cloud minnows, Endler guppies and Japanese rice fish as well as our native creek minnows.  They have all survived "normal" winter when the ice is thin and intermittent but only the rice fish and natives have made it when the ice is thicker and longer lasting. I think they might do better in a bigger deeper pond where there is still three or four feet of open water under the ice instead of just one. I think with a bigger volume of water and a bigger breeding population any of them might adapt to my weather conditions.

Cool! Your Endler guppies survived water with ice on top? How deep is your water?

Kevin Feinstein II wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:

Kevin Feinstein II wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:

Mark Reed wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:The complexity and engineering involved in aquaponics has thus far kept me at bay, but I have a couple set ups that keep bring me back to the concept.

First, I have about a half acre pond that is home to the usual assortment of freshwater fish, turtles and algae. My dad is nuts for building water features and so he built a sort of volcano shaped fountain/ pond along side it, using a pump to push water about 8 feet up and then cascade  down into a series of large basins (each of which probably hold about 800 gallons) before streaming back into the pond.

Thus I have some quasi aquaponics infrastructure already in place. I already grow water lotus in the lower basin but I would really like to add some fish to the upper basin. I get a few fish out of the big pond with a fishing rod,  but I can't shake the appeal of netting dinner out of the mini pond.

The problem is from everything I've read, tilapia is the most efficient fish to raise in a set up like this but I'm in zone 7b, which makes tilapia raising an annual prospect. So I'm on the hunt for an efficient variety that can overwinter in 7b.

The second tempting use  of aquaponics has been referenced several times in this thread - since I'm going to be using 200+ gallons of water as thermal mass when I put in my greenhouse,  why not get some dual use out of it? I intend to cultivate some water hyacinth if I can keep the greenhouse temperature up,  but it sounds be great to utilize more of the water than just the surface area of the openings of my 55 gallon barrels.

Sounds to me like you have a pretty sweet setup there already. A series of 800-gallon basins with moving water in a couple of zones warmer than mine. All kinds of things should be possible with that.

I was thinking of bluegill in the upper basin for cold hardiness and low maintenance (and because they are readily available in the pond), but the yields seem like they would be pretty low relative to tilapia.  But tilapia would require a lot more management.

What would you in my situation?

Tilapia grow crazy fast. You can easily treat them like an annual fish. Get the started as early as your climate and you ability to warm up the water will allow in the spring and by fall you they will be full sized and harvestable. They are quite amazing like that and far more productive than bluegill or similar cool water fish. However, what I am interested in are growing minnows (there are many types, maybe eaten like sardines?) and if not food for the chickens.

I want to avoid having to buy fingerlings every year.  If I could overwinter some breeding stock in my basement or a greenhouse,  tilapia would be more appealing.

What makes you interested in minnows? Ease of raising?

Minnows are easier to raise, and you can raise them in much higher numbers and they are more versatile. You can put them in smaller tubs, aquariums, mosquito control areas, etc and feed them whole to your chickens (or eat them whole potentially yourself for more nutrition -- like sardines.)

I haven't tried this yet, but you could potentially breed the next round of tilapia fry inside in an aquarium or indoor tub. They are fairly easy to breed. I bred mine in my first aquaponics attempt which was pretty clumsy and overcrowded. The fry did not survive for long (they got eaten), but I could have scooped them out and separated them if I had the space to do so at the time.

Equating fish types to livestock types:

bsf are like daphnia culture
minnows are like chickens
bluegill are like sheep/goats
bass/trout are like cows

tilapia are like growing tropical fruit in pots in climates with freezes. LOL. I laugh, but my potted guava that I bring inside in the winter out produces my in-ground blueberry bushes by far.

Most small or suburban homesteads start with chickens, but we tend to skip the minnow stage with fish. Interestingly enough, when I tried to use the internet search engines to find info about native minnows and small fish in my local creek/river, etc, I got fed 99% "game fish" as if the other fish don't exist. I had sift through a narrow range of scientific papers, government reports, etc to barely find anything at all. I found out more about my local darter fish from an old HTML basic (early 2000's) website that was about keeping native fish in aquariums than all other sources combined!

Sam Shade wrote:

Kevin Feinstein II wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:

Mark Reed wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:The complexity and engineering involved in aquaponics has thus far kept me at bay, but I have a couple set ups that keep bring me back to the concept.

First, I have about a half acre pond that is home to the usual assortment of freshwater fish, turtles and algae. My dad is nuts for building water features and so he built a sort of volcano shaped fountain/ pond along side it, using a pump to push water about 8 feet up and then cascade  down into a series of large basins (each of which probably hold about 800 gallons) before streaming back into the pond.

Thus I have some quasi aquaponics infrastructure already in place. I already grow water lotus in the lower basin but I would really like to add some fish to the upper basin. I get a few fish out of the big pond with a fishing rod,  but I can't shake the appeal of netting dinner out of the mini pond.

The problem is from everything I've read, tilapia is the most efficient fish to raise in a set up like this but I'm in zone 7b, which makes tilapia raising an annual prospect. So I'm on the hunt for an efficient variety that can overwinter in 7b.

The second tempting use  of aquaponics has been referenced several times in this thread - since I'm going to be using 200+ gallons of water as thermal mass when I put in my greenhouse,  why not get some dual use out of it? I intend to cultivate some water hyacinth if I can keep the greenhouse temperature up,  but it sounds be great to utilize more of the water than just the surface area of the openings of my 55 gallon barrels.

Sounds to me like you have a pretty sweet setup there already. A series of 800-gallon basins with moving water in a couple of zones warmer than mine. All kinds of things should be possible with that.

I was thinking of bluegill in the upper basin for cold hardiness and low maintenance (and because they are readily available in the pond), but the yields seem like they would be pretty low relative to tilapia.  But tilapia would require a lot more management.

What would you in my situation?

Tilapia grow crazy fast. You can easily treat them like an annual fish. Get the started as early as your climate and you ability to warm up the water will allow in the spring and by fall you they will be full sized and harvestable. They are quite amazing like that and far more productive than bluegill or similar cool water fish. However, what I am interested in are growing minnows (there are many types, maybe eaten like sardines?) and if not food for the chickens.

I want to avoid having to buy fingerlings every year.  If I could overwinter some breeding stock in my basement or a greenhouse,  tilapia would be more appealing.

What makes you interested in minnows? Ease of raising?

Minnows are easier to raise, and you can raise them in much higher numbers and they are more versatile. You can put them in smaller tubs, aquariums, etc and feed them whole to your chickens (or eat them whole potentially yourself for more nutrition -- like sardines.)

Mark Reed wrote:

Kevin Feinstein II wrote:

I like aquaponics for the fish and the life-force that living water systems provide.

I also just like anything water, fish, plant related. I don't usually watch videos, but I peeked at the one you linked and ended up watching a bit of it and loved it! Whole different set up from me though mostly because he is apparently in a climate where it doesn't freeze in winter. Those tubs would freeze solid in my climate.

My outdoor (200 gallon) pond is about two feet deep and freezes as much as eight inches sometimes over winter, only the pump keeps a bit of open water running in the stream part. It attracts enormous amounts of birds in winter; way more than the feeders do. In early spring it does turn pea green, almost thick looking for about a week or so. My theory on that is rotted leaves, fish poop and stuff have accumulated over winter and release an explosion of nutrient when the weather warms up, mixed with more sunlight the algae also explode. Then the water lilies, hornwort and other plants wake up, and the water quickly goes perfectly clear. Left behind is a layer thick of green fur on all the surfaces, then the toads come and thousands of tadpoles eat most of that. Whatever that is also lives in my aquarium, but the Otocinclus Catfish keep it under control.

I agree with you on the "life-force", but I do think actual food might also be possible except I'm thinking of the fish, not vegetables. As far as not using pumps, in my climate the water volume would have to be much larger and deeper. I don't use filters in my little pond or in my indoor aquarium. The plants and biofilm take care of all of that. Our local fish species bass, bluegill and catfish always do well but I have to turn them loose when they overgrow it. I can't raise a quantity big enough to eat, just a few and they are more like pets.

I would have to have a greenhouse to do it, but I have thought more than once about putting together a set up similar in some ways to the fellow in the video.

Here is a little video of my pond.

Yeah, winter sucks. LOL This spring I am going to try something similar to Duthie video set up. I am going to treat it like an annual "water garden." You could alternatively try cold hardy fish like rosy red minnows instead of things like guppies and provide some heat to the water. I am even contemplating putting the tubs on wheels and rolling them into my garage/basement in the winter. Obviously a big pond solves these problems, but I don't have space for that, nor do most.

Sam Shade wrote:

Mark Reed wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:The complexity and engineering involved in aquaponics has thus far kept me at bay, but I have a couple set ups that keep bring me back to the concept.

First, I have about a half acre pond that is home to the usual assortment of freshwater fish, turtles and algae. My dad is nuts for building water features and so he built a sort of volcano shaped fountain/ pond along side it, using a pump to push water about 8 feet up and then cascade  down into a series of large basins (each of which probably hold about 800 gallons) before streaming back into the pond.

Thus I have some quasi aquaponics infrastructure already in place. I already grow water lotus in the lower basin but I would really like to add some fish to the upper basin. I get a few fish out of the big pond with a fishing rod,  but I can't shake the appeal of netting dinner out of the mini pond.

The problem is from everything I've read, tilapia is the most efficient fish to raise in a set up like this but I'm in zone 7b, which makes tilapia raising an annual prospect. So I'm on the hunt for an efficient variety that can overwinter in 7b.

The second tempting use  of aquaponics has been referenced several times in this thread - since I'm going to be using 200+ gallons of water as thermal mass when I put in my greenhouse,  why not get some dual use out of it? I intend to cultivate some water hyacinth if I can keep the greenhouse temperature up,  but it sounds be great to utilize more of the water than just the surface area of the openings of my 55 gallon barrels.

Sounds to me like you have a pretty sweet setup there already. A series of 800-gallon basins with moving water in a couple of zones warmer than mine. All kinds of things should be possible with that.

I was thinking of bluegill in the upper basin for cold hardiness and low maintenance (and because they are readily available in the pond), but the yields seem like they would be pretty low relative to tilapia.  But tilapia would require a lot more management.

What would you in my situation?

Tilapia grow crazy fast. You can easily treat them like an annual fish. Get the started as early as your climate and you ability to warm up the water will allow in the spring and by fall you they will be full sized and harvestable. They are quite amazing like that and far more productive than bluegill or similar cool water fish. However, what I am interested in are growing minnows (there are many types, maybe eaten like sardines?) and if not food for the chickens.

Brian White wrote:

Kevin Feinstein II wrote:Nearly every time I see an aquaponics set-up in a video, in person, or of my own design, I always come to the stark realization when I look at it from a food growing gardener's perspective. I always think I could WAAAY outgrow that in a raised or in-ground garden bed, or even containers of soil on my driveway.

I like aquaponics for the fish and the life-force that living water systems provide.

My friend has a goldfish pond.  It has 3 or 4 tons of water in it.  Its only 18 inches deep to keep within the bylaw regulations.  It goes green in Summer.  She often uses the goldfish water to water her greenhouse..   So is it  almost half way to aquaponics? If her plants had leaves that the fish ate, it might be about 80% there?  I have read so many horror stories about all the fishes dying, suddenly because the ph went whack a doodle that I'd be wary to attempt aquaponics. So her 80% setup, is about as far as I would go.

It is likely that the pond goes green from what in the aquarium world is known as "greenwater." Which is a single celled algae essentially and is the foundation of life in a way, LOL. This can be used to feed plankton like daphnia or moina and a host of other creatures that are great for small fish (and fry.) These creatures will clean up the greenwater and transform it. I actively cultivate greenwater currently.

Also, I think the more complicated the setup, the more things that can go wrong. Aquaponics is dominated by gear oriented people, but in my experience this gear doesn't lead to more sustainable, stable, or ecological food production. It can be fun if you are into gear. It's interesting that the aquaponics world tends to make things more complicated than even the aquarium world.  

My thoughts are unless you have a pretty large pond or creek/pond type deal, I think it's difficult to produce any substantial food for us directly in such systems. It's just a valuable resource to have for many little reasons, and I'm all about a permaculture aquarium!

One thing that I also think as we start increasing the size of the tank, etc, is why do we always focus so much on the larger fish to eat? Muscle meat is the least nutritious of all the part of the fish (or any animal). What if we investigated eating small fish (whole) like minnows -- the way you would sardines.

On the other hand, you can feed small fish (even guppies) and minnows to your chickens, which is an amazing home grown protein source. BSF are great to have in the mix as well, but they can be difficult to raise consistently outside of the tropics. (I have been raising them for years, thinking of writing a book!)

Bottom line for me is:

Fish are fun and having a fish-supporting ecosystem of any kind (even an indoor aquarium) is a positive for your permaculture homestead
AND
We should rethink what types of plants and fish we keep in these systems

Nearly every time I see an aquaponics set-up in a video, in person, or of my own design, I always come to the stark realization when I look at it from a food growing gardener's perspective. I always think I could WAAAY outgrow that in a raised or in-ground garden bed, or even containers of soil on my driveway.

I like aquaponics for the fish and the life-force that living water systems provide.