[smallholder in the city]

I've recently discovered aquaponics and I wondered if any one has experience of this system?
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about it's essentially a system of growing plants, particularly herbs or vegetables hydroponically but using fish to supply the nutrient rich liquid. The plants in turn clean the water by removing the nitrogenous waste created by the fish and you get a crop of not only of herbs / veg but fish, such as trout as well.

Our future plans include a horticulture business selling native plants and I'm really interested in trying to incorporate an aquaponic system so wondered if anyone on TAS had any experience.

Here's a link that explains it in more detail for those who are interested

http://www.aquaponics.org.uk/information/

[HappyHippy]

I'm not into it myself - though the idea sounds great for the future 
CarolinaJim on here does it though, here's one of his posts
http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php/topic,1311.0.html
HTH
Karen

[egbert]

Ive looked into it a bit as I found it quite fascinating, but since I know I forget to water or feed my normal plants all the time I think I would forget to keep the water levels up or something and lose it all!

[OhLaLa]

G'pa did a similar thing and had good results, didn't use fish but did use the system where the plants grew in water and were fed via that. Works well with tomatoes in the greenhouse.


 

[smallholder in the city]

I am very keen on the idea. I don't think we've got room at the moment (and we're planning on moving next year) but I'm going to be volunteering at our local city farm so might see if they'll let me set up a system there. When we've got our smallholding I think I'll start off using it to grow the herbs for the sausages and if that goes well look at a larger system for the nursery.