K
kushtrees
- 591
- 63
Hi farmers, Ive been messing around with my aquaponic veggie (mostly basil and lettuce varieties, easy stuff to grow) garden for awhile only to realize i hate raising fish...
Since my last tilapia died I decided my next veggie experiment would be organic hydroponics. My goal here is to make a NFT system that uses only OMRI certified nutrients, that means no iguana juice, or general organics bs, if it doesnt have a OMRI or other organic certification I dnt want to use it.
With aquaponics the fish waste (ammonia) is broken down to nitrites and then nitrates by nitrifying bacterial. This can happen in the media itself, or in the case of water culture, in the water usually employing a biofilter to house the bacteria. It seems that once a bacterial colony was estabilished and you had plenty of nitrifying bacteria, instead of having fish waste provide the raw nutrients to be broken down you could just add the raw nutrients, i.e. compost, EWC, kelp extract/ meal, fish meal/ hydrolysis, alfalfa meal, blood meal, bat guano, etc. and have the bacteria break them down. This would of course require running the system without plants for a few weeks to establish the colony and have them start breaking down the inputs. You would also probably have to have a combination of quicker release (like blood meal) and slower release (like feather meal) nutrient sources to ensure proper nutrient availability.
The basic design i have in mind is essentially a compost team maker that pumps water to a biolfilter where it than goes to NFT tubes than back to the res. Compost mixes would be held in the res in a compost tea bag and replaced every so often, or if you were using liquid nutrients (harder to find actual organic liquid nutrients) you could only have essentials like humic acid, kelp meal alfalfa meal, compost and EWC in a suspension. You would only add water and nutrients there would be no water change outs because that would get rid of your valuable bacteria. I hope to run this like an aquaponic set up, only adding top offs and instead of fish feed, nutrients.
I am in the process of building a biofilter and when I have time Ill try and post some pics. I came on the site looking for giddeons organic MPB expiriement but it looks like it was lost in the site change or something. I dont really plan to try this on my indoor garden but i thought i might get some thoughts here I know seamaiden and some other have experience raising fish so... Anyways id love to hear people's opinions on this, Ive been looking for a way to organic water culture and after aquaponics this seemed like something cool to try.
Since my last tilapia died I decided my next veggie experiment would be organic hydroponics. My goal here is to make a NFT system that uses only OMRI certified nutrients, that means no iguana juice, or general organics bs, if it doesnt have a OMRI or other organic certification I dnt want to use it.
With aquaponics the fish waste (ammonia) is broken down to nitrites and then nitrates by nitrifying bacterial. This can happen in the media itself, or in the case of water culture, in the water usually employing a biofilter to house the bacteria. It seems that once a bacterial colony was estabilished and you had plenty of nitrifying bacteria, instead of having fish waste provide the raw nutrients to be broken down you could just add the raw nutrients, i.e. compost, EWC, kelp extract/ meal, fish meal/ hydrolysis, alfalfa meal, blood meal, bat guano, etc. and have the bacteria break them down. This would of course require running the system without plants for a few weeks to establish the colony and have them start breaking down the inputs. You would also probably have to have a combination of quicker release (like blood meal) and slower release (like feather meal) nutrient sources to ensure proper nutrient availability.
The basic design i have in mind is essentially a compost team maker that pumps water to a biolfilter where it than goes to NFT tubes than back to the res. Compost mixes would be held in the res in a compost tea bag and replaced every so often, or if you were using liquid nutrients (harder to find actual organic liquid nutrients) you could only have essentials like humic acid, kelp meal alfalfa meal, compost and EWC in a suspension. You would only add water and nutrients there would be no water change outs because that would get rid of your valuable bacteria. I hope to run this like an aquaponic set up, only adding top offs and instead of fish feed, nutrients.
I am in the process of building a biofilter and when I have time Ill try and post some pics. I came on the site looking for giddeons organic MPB expiriement but it looks like it was lost in the site change or something. I dont really plan to try this on my indoor garden but i thought i might get some thoughts here I know seamaiden and some other have experience raising fish so... Anyways id love to hear people's opinions on this, Ive been looking for a way to organic water culture and after aquaponics this seemed like something cool to try.