Plants and Fish, Symbiotic and Delicious

Living in the south, one sees gardens and fields sprawled all over the countryside. Mostly tobacco and corn for commercial use but nearly every yard in my community has a garden, whether just a few tomato plants or a meticulously sewn acre plot. Knowledge has been passed down from generations and put into practice growing and harvesting, preserving and preparing, teaching one of the most valuable skills one could have.

Like a lot of people, I'm still stuck in the monotonous cycle of a 40 - 60 hour work week. Although I am fortunate enough to have a job I somewhat enjoy, it is extremely disheartening to look at the tax withholdings every paycheck and be harshly reminded of my slavery. But that is another topic for another time. My point is I don't really have time (or space) for a garden short of a few vegetables planted haphazardly in the yard. Also, work hours make it difficult to shop at farmers markets.

One of my main concerns being that the centralized food production system in the US has been shoveling chemicals down the populations throat for decades, I started being more conscious of what I was eating years ago. But I am still reliant on production/distribution systems and local farmers. So I started looking into sustainable ways to grow food on a small scale but still have a descent yield come harvest time. I finally settled on building an aquaponics system.

If you have ever seen a body of water, you have seen an aquaponics system. It's symbiotic in that fish produce waste, creating beneficial bacteria which nourish plants which filter the water and this cycle continues.

My research found that there are many different ways to run an aquaponics system and almost none of them are wrong. It can be as simple or as complicated as the designer sees fit for their specific purpose. The three most commonly used techniques are:
Flood and drain or (ebb and flow)
Nutrient Film Technique (NFT)
and Deep water culture
I chose to go with a simple flood and drain system. This will pump water directly from the fish tank into the grow bed which is drained with a bell siphon back to the tank. The whole setup cost me about $35 (I still have to get tubing for the pump) and took about 30 minutes to set up.

This is the beginning stage. I am about to start cycling the system this week and hopefully will be adding fish in the next few weeks. I am hoping to start with simple plants like lettuce and a few herbs until a strong microbiological colony has built up.The jury is still out The fish I'm going to use. If anyone has recommendations or tips they would be appreciated.