Mindzle

Posts Tagged ‘Hammer System’

aquaponics is the process of growing food that combines the pros of aquaculture (raising fish in tanks) and hydroponics (growing plants without soil) while eliminating the cons.

Aquaponics is a sustainable food production system:

• Aquaponics has very low water consumption: less than 1% of the water used in traditional farming.
• Aquaponics uses 70% less energy than traditional in-ground farming methods!
• Aquaponics creates eight to ten times more vegetable production than farming in-ground.
• Aquaponics is fully scalable: backyard family systems to full commercial systems.
• Aquaponics is pure, clean, and natural: USDA Certified Organic.
• Aquaponics is easy to learn and operate: anyone can do it!

Aquaponics has been around for a long time, but recently more and more home owners have started to develop home based systems. In part this is due to people wanting to take control of their food security. Additionally in todays wired world the internet is allowing more people to access better information.

There are quite a few good resources online. My particular favorite is: Backyard Aquaponics because of their large community of experienced Aquaponicists. Most started by developing small “learning” systems and have graduated on to larger systems that can keep their family stocked with fresh fish and veggies. In some cases they have developed large commercial scale operations that produce food for sale. You can track their progress through the forums, see detailed designs and most importantly get valuable insight and advice from people who have “been there and done that”.

I will soon begin my own “learning system”. based on my climate, growing season and land availability I have a few tough choices to make. Which type or types of fish to grow? What grow media should I use? Technical details such as valves, pumps general design and layout. Thankfully great resources exist to help me find the answers to these and many more questions.

Aquaponics has the potential to feed a whole lot of people with energy-efficient, sustainable food-production methods. A lot of this will be done by individuals and families with backyard aquaponics systems. As these systems become more economical and efficient, backyard systems will become more common until every neighborhood has one. This will put tremendous power back into the hands of individuals, as they become more and more responsible for their own food security and head toward “food freedom”.