furosha

Hi, Ive been following this thread in the background.. Busy designing my own aquaponics system up here in new market. Im not greatly experienced with fish, plants are my greatest interest and i have experience with hydro/aeroponics. One of the the aspects that has really attracted me to aquaponics is the simplicity and balance of the systems over traditional hydroponics. I've decided based on your advice and my own research that goldfish are the best fish to start with. I will continue researching on paper the possibility of an edible fish on the small scale. The dutch bucket method is not really new, but it could be a much simpler/safer method than large beds. Its possible to start with fewer buckets, and add as you need them, thus resulting in a lower initial cost. If a crack develops in a bed with flood and drain and you have no protection against this, you could end up with both dead fish and dead plants. Drippers would of course slow this in the case of a damaged/blocked bed. Replacement and maintenance would also be simpler. It would even be possible to physically move the contents of one bucket into another without serious disturbance to the roots.