Reddit reviews Aquaponic Gardening: A Step-by-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together

If you move the decimal over. This is about 1,000 in books...

(If I had to pick a few for 100 bucks: encyclopedia of country living, survival medicine, wilderness medicine, ball preservation, art of fermentation, a few mushroom and foraging books.)


Medical:

Where there is no doctor

Where there is no dentist

Emergency War Surgery

The survival medicine handbook

Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine

Special Operations Medical Handbook

Food Production

Mini Farming

encyclopedia of country living

square foot gardening

Seed Saving

Storey’s Raising Rabbits

Meat Rabbits

Aquaponics Gardening: Step By Step

Storey’s Chicken Book

Storey Dairy Goat

Storey Meat Goat

Storey Ducks

Storey’s Bees

Beekeepers Bible

bio-integrated farm

soil and water engineering

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation

Food Preservation and Cooking

Steve Rinella’s Large Game Processing

Steve Rinella’s Small Game

Ball Home Preservation

Charcuterie

Root Cellaring

Art of Natural Cheesemaking

Mastering Artesian Cheese Making

American Farmstead Cheesemaking

Joe Beef: Surviving Apocalypse

Wild Fermentation

Art of Fermentation

Nose to Tail

Artisan Sourdough

Designing Great Beers

The Joy of Home Distilling

Foraging

Southeast Foraging

Boletes

Mushrooms of Carolinas

Mushrooms of Southeastern United States

Mushrooms of the Gulf Coast


Tech

farm and workshop Welding

ultimate guide: plumbing

ultimate guide: wiring

ultimate guide: home repair

off grid solar

Woodworking

Timberframe Construction

Basic Lathework

How to Run A Lathe

Backyard Foundry

Sand Casting

Practical Casting

The Complete Metalsmith

Gears and Cutting Gears

Hardening Tempering and Heat Treatment

Machinery’s Handbook

How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic

Electronics For Inventors

Basic Science


Chemistry

Organic Chem

Understanding Basic Chemistry Through Problem Solving

Ham Radio

AARL Antenna Book

General Class Manual

Tech Class Manual


MISC

Ray Mears Essential Bushcraft

Contact!

Nuclear War Survival Skills

The Knowledge: How to rebuild civilization in the aftermath of a cataclysm

Aloha /u/hba_123. I started a thread a couple weeks ago: Aquaponics Books and Resources. I would recommend starting with Aquaponic Gardening and Small-scale aquaponic food production (free PDF from FAO).

that's the fun part. start with sylvia bernstein. http://www.amazon.com/Aquaponic-Gardening-Step-By-Step-Vegetables-Together/dp/086571701X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382709615&sr=8-1&keywords=sylvia+bernstein+aquaponics

This book is like an aquaponic bible: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086571701X/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Highly recommend it! It should have everything you need to know to get started.

Do yourself a favor and get this book. It will tell you everything about how aquaponics works to include EVERYTHING scientific behind it. This was the first book I purchased and I read it front to back twice before I even thought about starting a system. Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/086571701X?cache=ef0e54c7d28c493923004a32aae3b4a2#ref=mp_s_a_1_1&qid=1393886769&sr=8-1

YouTube is great, however, a lot of YouTube videos are just showing systems, not the guts or science. Again, if you want to know the science behind it, find "Bright Agrotech" on YouTube. The guy deals with large aquaponics daily and dumbs it down for the novice.

Lastly, if you can't find what you're looking, ask here! We're here to help just as others have helped us in the past. But read that book seriously! It will answer 98% of your questions.

Good luck!

The blog is mine. I'm not quite sure I understand your points, so please respond. :)

>Frequent cycling water isn't just for the plants, but to filter fish waste solids and chemicals to help keep the fish healthy.

>Why make a single filtering job with one electrical item into a two-filter job with multiple electrical points?

The filter will be running constantly to filter the waste, build biofiltration, and keep the fish healthy. I'm spending less on grow media, so the cost of the filter is almost covered by savings on excess grow media (net cost is $20 if I only buy 25 gallons of media instead of 50). The electricity consumption may be slightly higher, but I think the pro's of being able to move the plants, spend less on media, and have a more stable biofilter will negate the additional cost of electricity to run the filter. The hydroponic guy suggested that using a grow bed will not be as effective as using a filter for the bioload. He suggested that as the growbed fills with water and then drains, any part of the grow bed that dries will not have bacteria, only the moist parts.

The point of NOT using a completely filled grow bed is to allow me to move the plants around, facilitate cleaning the grow bed, and cut down on how much grow media I need. The timer won't use the same amount of electricity as a constantly running pump.

The filter is necessary because the water isn't running directly onto the grow media. Using the grow media as a filter still requires cleaning out the grow bed and the sediment at least once a year. This will be much easier with this design.

I'm new to aquaponics, so I'm learning. I've read Sylvia Bernstein's book on Aquaponic Gardening from front to back, so I know all the suggestions and rules of thumb. I'm suggesting a better way to do things based on advice from a hydroponics expert with a little aquaponics knowledge.

I can still return the filter if need be, but please do respond so I can figure out what design I want to go with. I'm not suggesting that I know more than you, but this is what I know. That's why the header of my blog says "sharing my learning experiences with aquaponics." I come to this community for knowledge, and to share my experiences.

I bought this book and it has so much useful information that you will need to know. You could find all the info online, but when it is all in one place it makes it so much better. Best $20 I've spent so far.

Depends on what type of learner you are. Do your prefer hands on work (tacit) or reading from books (explicit)? If you prefer tacit try building a small system from scratch and find out what works and what doesn't. Experience is the best teacher in my opinion. If you prefer the other method start with http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/086571701X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1373268569&sr=1-1&pi=SL160_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-dp,TopRight,12,-18_SH30_OU01_AA160 If you have problems along the way we are here to help! :)

Personally I looked up whatever I could, read some books, and then built my own system. After that it was just trial and error....and reddit posts of course :P

I got some good information from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Aquaponic-Gardening-Step-Step-Vegetables/dp/086571701X

I liked Aquaponic Gardening May have everything you want.

There is a ton of information on this subreddit! Takes a little bit of digging with the search function, but it's out there.

There is more information than you can imagine for free out on the internet. I believe that if you're paying money to learn about aquaponics, then you're getting ripped off. The exception to this is perhaps a book or two, such as this one.

This site has the basics covered.

This forum has an incredible amount of knowledge, run by people from all around the world who have years and years of experience running aquaponic systems.

Good luck in your hunt!

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Sylvia Bernstein's Aquaponic Gardening is a lovely primer.

Sylvia Bernstein's Aquaponic Gardening book was a good starter for me, she covered most of the basics as well as outlining the different system setups with pro/cons. http://www.amazon.com/Aquaponic-Gardening-Step-By-Step-Vegetables-Together/dp/086571701X

I also like Sylvia's youtube videos and while I think some of her company store's stuff is pricey, basics like potassium carbonate/calcium carbonate, ascorbic acid ( deals with chloramine ) are fairly reasonable.

Another youtube video source is Murray ( I can't remember his name ) who is the Australian Johnny apple of Aquaponics.


One word of warning, 10 gallons is going to be a bitch to stabilize for the first month or two. Its really easy to have the PH locked into 7.4-7.6 @ below 72-74 degrees fahrenheit, only to find the PH @ 6.2 when the water goes up. Also, my 120 liter system ( 30gallon ) system instantly jumps from 6.2 to 8 PH if I add more then 2 grams of carbonate ( potassium or calcium ) to the system.


As for Goldfish, I've heard recommendations of 3-5 baby goldfish per gallon but Goldfish are super pooping machines, so perhaps more like 1-2 per gallon until you #1 stabilize your system #2 need the extra ammonia.

If you want to learn about aquaponics this is a great book (sorry about the link, I'm on my mobile):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/086571701X/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?pc_redir=T1

Some other good resources:

/r/aquaponics

Backyardaquapoics.com

The "soil" used in aquaponics is just a medium. Hydroton(corn), gravel, or some other type of medium is used for the roots to grow into.

Aquaponics could work for marijuana but there's a significant start up period and learning curve (you're literally making a little ecosystem with plants, fish, worms, and most importantly bacteria). But once you cycle a system and get it to be stable then maintenance is relatively easy. My system isn't old enough but I've read more experienced people say it takes about 6 months for a system to be fully mature. You can probably supplement earlier on but it's better to start with plants that have lower nutrient necessities, I'd think.

The light is on a timer for around 14-16 hours per day which is pretty standard for growing plants efficiently. Total wattage is only 48 watts (plus 2.2 watts for the air pump) so doesn't use too much electricity per day. The real expensive thing in a system like this is the grow light, getting a fluorescent light with hood, ballast and bulbs can get really expensive but I worked out a deal with a supplier to get them relatively cheap.

To learn more about aquaponic technology I would suggest the gold standard book Aquaponic Gardening by Sylvia Bernstein. Lots of good info in there about the components of an aquaponic system and how they work.

I have found with aquaponics that it is all about experimentation still. It's a new growing method in wide use so it's still not very widely written about. I would steer you away from a float bed and say if you are going to do that to use a board and a modified ebb and flow as foam is expensive and limits gas exchange in the water (needed for life). Just do the same as a float bed but use plywood you put on top of your tray with holes for your baskets. Use a high water bell syphon. I have found for growth media just use hydroton for everything in various sizes. I haven't gone wrong and have had success with everything from leafy greens to cucumbers and tomatoes.

If you are starting from seed I would suggest starting with rockwool (grodan). It makes life so much easier and no mess to clean off the roots before you put into your system. you just pluck up your growing seedling after the roots erupt and drop it straight into the hydroton.
Anyhow, Enjoy

Edit: Forgot also there is this... a MUST read HERE

This book was recommended by a friend when I first got started.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/086571701X/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_NQDAwbGSANCPC

Bernstein's book was my first one.

Some of the information/rules of thumb are a bit iffy, from what I'm told, but it's a good start, and you'll have edible plants.

Idiot stoners at Worms Way said to use it as a foliar spray and "you'll wake up and everything will be bright green." I woke up and everything was black and stayed that way. You should get the API Master Kit. I found it at the local pet store. Throw some worms in there. Red wigglers are available at most gas stations in proximity to a lake or river. They seem to make nutrients more available. Do you have the Aquaponic Gardening book? She says pH should be between 6.8 and 7.

I read Aquaponic Gardening by Sylvia Bernstein (https://www.amazon.com/Aquaponic-Gardening-Step-Step-Vegetables/dp/086571701X) before starting a small hobby system. It's not geared towards the science or business side but I thought it was good. It does have info on sizing, building, choosing fish, cycling and maintaining a system. You can find all that and more in the links people shared but the book is a good coherent baseline to start a small system.