If you want inspiration to build a bit larger aquaponics system, then maybe our build can help. We have a system with place for about 7000 plants, with two fish tanks of 4.5 m3 each. We have about 200 rainbow trout. Total system water volume is 38 m3.
We are also running a prototype setup where we take roots and plants not sold and feeding them to mealworms, which will become food supplement for the fish. This way we won’t need to feed them as much conventional fish feed.
This is a pilot and demo facility, and we have spent about 15 000 hours building it and learning, and material cost has been about €200k.
Visited your website but I don’t speak that language so I couldn’t understand it, but looks like you use a method similar Nelson and Pade…? One thing we did to increase rev per area of space was inoculate wood with mycelium and hang it above the water. You could harvest market desirable mushrooms along with your produce and protein. Also, incorporating shrimp to further add to the process of breaking down the ammonia particulates during the transformation to nitrate can be beneficial and another rev stream. Are y’all profitable and scalable with the ops you’re running?
I’m kind of bummed because I was hoping there were going to be a lot more people focused on this and scaling it, but in this thread there are not…
The build log I linked to is in English. We will also publish more in that if you want to follow it.
This is a pilot facility, but looks similar to what Nelson and Pade offers at a quick glance. The commercial scale facility will be very different than this. The scale is 50-100 times larger and you can think of the growing area of this as one layer in a multi-layer facility.
This small scale pilot is far from profitable. Generally we think you need to be at up to 1000 m2 growing area if you have a facility which is a side business and you take care of it alongside your farm. If it is a business by itself with external distribution you probably need it to be about 10 000 m2. (Of course this depends heavily on your local conditions, what you can sell, at what price etc.)
We are focused on scaling, but that is another story than a demo and pilot plant. :)
Excellent! Both your website and the original post. I think farming in Scandinavia needs a reboot, specially because of unfavour Clima. At the moment it relies heavily on buying food from other countries with better clima and cheaper labour. Unortunately this involves a lot of transportation/contamination.
This kind of project seems to point the right direction.
For more «normal» people I believe is important to try growing things outside when possible or inside. Then you really understand the real value of what we take for granted on the grocery store.
Well done! IMHO producing the feed on site is the ultimate sustainability move because it makes aquaponics truly autonomous. In the past I tried soldier fly larvae but I wasn't able to produce enough to sustain my fish, it was just a supplement for them.
We are also running a prototype setup where we take roots and plants not sold and feeding them to mealworms, which will become food supplement for the fish. This way we won’t need to feed them as much conventional fish feed.
This is a pilot and demo facility, and we have spent about 15 000 hours building it and learning, and material cost has been about €200k.
http://cirkularodling.se/build-an-aquaponic-indoor-farm-part...