Well it certainly isnt "self" sustaining. I will either need pumps or to manually move water, but I could re circulate the same water if need be.
I still need to work out the exact details honestly... but everything Im doing is sound......
examples.... and yes you could scale this up to industrial sized. the industry spend 60-70 percent of the capitol on feeding the fish, it doesnt have to be the case.... here are some variables, and it will give you an idea.... in no particular order, bear with me Im not good a explaining myself...
Most back yard aquaponics set up use a series of grow beds for LAND based plants. these grow beds costs 1000s to install. They have lots of parts that could need fixed. the idea is the fish wastes feed the plants. the reality is that you need to have the nitrification cycle going on. where bacteria that live in your growing medium for the plants, in the beds you drain and flood ALL DAY turn these harmful things into less harmful ones the plants can pull from the water. Its a ton of work to regulate all that. Beyond the skill level of many. Also if you read into it, the land based plants are deficient in key things like iron magnesium and potassium sometimes others. You have to supplement those things from elswhere for your plants to survive.... the same efforts and WAY less capitol would grow the same plants more productively in soil. without needing supplemented. the foods are also nutritionally deficient, although the industry like to ignore that one. Greens which grow a bit better in such set ups then other things will concentrate nitrates to dangerous levels.... and to top it off you STILL need to buy the fishes food.
so to cap this... you grow less efficient supplemented land based foods, while buying subsidized land based foods for the fish to eat. It "seems" real interesting on the surface but its flawed from the start....
The dead foods most feed their fish are corn and soy based and store bought. these foods must be eaten in 3-5 minutes to not degrade nutritionally!!! which means you are hard pressed to maximize feeding levels without also lowering foods quality. Unless you feed every 1/2 hour 24 hours a day. This same food also degrades the water rather fast. So not only loosing nutritional value, but also lowering water quality...
Now lets say your goal is to grow fish for yourself. Your sane so you want to grow their foods as well. Dont get me wrong part of why carp or tilapia are so neat is they eat anything, but leave that to scraps imo. If you grow corn just for them, or beans etc. How do you feed it? Do you process it into a feed? etc? Many use worms and thats great, but what if they dont eat them all right away? All these things degrade the water, although being fresher are healthier.....
So then heres my thinking, with some well established facts to back it.
Duckweed, azolla, and Id have to look up the names of the others... are all VERY fast growing. they can pull 90 percent of the amonia and other wastes from the water. Its used in sewage treatment in some places because of this. It grows WAY WAY faster then land based plants. doubles its biomass in 2-3 days. It can be dried and feed to chickens, rabbits, ducks, fish, etc... very nutrient dense. Pulling out 90 percent of the nitrates is BETTER then what the land based plants can do. So duckweed alone, can alter the whole game. you dont need all those grow beds and all the growing medium. 1000s of dollars worth of stuff. You dont need to regulate the draining and flooding of grow beds, and if it fails all your fish might die from anaerobic conditions. Because as a proper WATER based plant, duckweed doesnt need the nitrification cycle to be able to harness it. unlike land based plants.
so back up a second, duckweed alone offers both a SUPERIOR filtering action then ANY system even ones costing 50k for a back yard set can do with land based stuff. It also provides one of the most efficiently growing nutrient dense foods on the planet. theres other bonuses to, used fresh it doesnt degrade into the water when you feed your fish. In fact until the eat it, it will continue to grow, and filter their water. Right in the same kiddy pool I can grow crayfish (Ive got a great species for this), moina, daphnia and other phyto plankton, which carp LOVE... also other plants, to round out the diet..... Basically everything these fish would eat in the wild!!!...
So I can stock the carp tanks with as much duckweed as they like to eat in a day or two, as much of the plankton as grew eatra that day, and other assorted plants. ALL of these clean in filter the water, all of them at the peak of their nutritional qualities until the second they are eaten. And the fish can browse ALL day, rather then , try really hard to get a full belly in the 3-5 minute window you alloted it.... best of all these plants are more efficient to grow, and grow while cleaning the fishes water....
Perhaps most importantly the fish are HEALTHIER on live foods. Its a simple fact. theres a reason why fish farms NEED antibiotics. Just like any other animal keep them healthy from the start.....
So I still need to figure out exactly how much surface area I need to grow the amount of duckweed needed to regulate the fishes water. I can use an additional sand filter for further nitrification if its needed, I can also use a charcoal filter for chemical filtration if needed. I can do those things myself by the way, even made of clay should I need to. the plants alone can keep the water good enough in fact better then land based plants.... but an extra polishing would be best if you want a truly closed system. If waters scarce thats the way to go, if the water isnt scarce, just drain some out and add more every few days.
So if you look at all the variables together.... You can have less efficiently grown store foods for the fish, or less efficiently grown foods you grew yourself that will take a lot of processing and work to feed well. Or you can easily grow the same types of things these fish WANT to eat and keep them healthiest, more efficiently. While delivery ideal nutrition, the ability to browse as the fish wants, and keeping the fish healthier. Happier as well, my fish are clearly happier since I used live foods. the extra duckweed is a great feed for most any other animal including humans although I dont think its terribly palatable for humans. nutritionally dense though.
that same food you grew for the fish now doesnt need to be grown, those land based plants the aqua ponics system offered are now grown in soil with no nutritional issues, and except for the extremely expensive set ups(which are essentially hydro ponics adding outside inputs all the time since the fish wastes dont give the complete scope) will do better in the soil if you have good soil. So looking at all the variables at once, theres a wide room for improvement. You could also do this for the price of the tanks and a bucket if your willing to move water yourself, even with automatic pumps its a fraction of the capitol. Stocking densities become a matter of how oxygenated you can get the water, which means if you have no electricity or mechanical means of oxygenation, you could grow fish still, but nothing like the levels you can achieve with it. Same with any other small system though of course. But theres much less to break, healthier happier fish, optimum feeding, most efficient paths to grow each thing needing grown, no need of outside inputs (besides man hours or some electricity of course) cleaner water, much much less capitol, less to break, the system much less likely to crash. even if your pumps failed and your reduced to moving water with buckets for awhile, youve got a window to do it in. the whole nature of how the grow beds is different. In the other set ups they could go anaerobic in a day, and wipe out your fish. Which can be an issue for those folks even if that never happens, and you stir up the bottom of their tanks. So its easier to manage as well. Just because i intend to do it mostly manually doesnt mean you couldnt set it up automatically, it would still be a fraction of the capitol, and less chance of issues. youd just go by once a day and take plants, and animals from the grow beds and give them to the fish.
there are lots of other little things as well, but those are the bigger ones. there are also some edible plants for humans I could grow as part of my water filter as well, but Im focusing n growing a diverse range for the fish first. water plants are more efficient then irrigating something in the soil by the way, as the only water lost is evaporation.
I reread the post, I dont think I wrote this well.... Im not always good at expressing ideas. But you can get the gist of it.
