Useful post for anyone who eats..
 

I've been learning a bit about aquaponics/hydroponics. I'm not planning to start a farm or anything, but it's always been interesting to me.

aquaponics - is usually a fish based system where fish are grown along side your plants in order to use their by products as nutrients for the plants.

hydroponics - is a similar system which doesn't include fish and the required nutrients are added manually to the system. (this is what this video covers)


hydroponics has long been used by pot growers because they often have to hide their crops inside houses so it's a bit nicer set up for indoors than dealing with soil inside a house. It also will allow for faster growing at higher yields.

Both of these types of growing are becoming more mainstream, especially with urban farming where they are dealing with limited space or are often growing in doors.

Anyway.. this video shows a extremely simple a cheap method that just about anyone could use to grow theirselves 2 head of lettuce a week if they choose. For the record you don't need the fish tank pump, there are no fish in the system so there really isn't a reason to add o2 to the water.



I randomly picked this guys video from youtube as the example because his hole design is set up for 8 holes which is the amount of space needed to grow 8 head of lettuce.

Basically, using a set up like this, you could start 2 new heads of lettuce per week and after roughly 30 days you would have a supply of 2 heads of lettuce a week as long as you keep the rotation going. (some varieties of lettuce will grow faster or slower)



Another vid that shows a guy growing with out the fish tank pump but also shows how to build a cheap light stand.



Anyway figured I'd show this simple way to grow yourself some fresh food very cheaply. You can grow other veggies as well.

Brassmonkey is bug in this he's made some friends over the last couple years that is set up I think even show pics of it I'm not sure

Interesting. Me and the missus have been looking into starting a small-scale hydroponic farm. We’re heading off in about four weeks to look for a suitable property. The idea is to house the hydroponic systems in poly tunnels and focus on two main crops: spinach and rocket. A small bag of that mix here averages $3.50.

We’re still in the planning stages, but hopefully get the first stage up and running by the end of the year (summertime here in Oz)

Cool & good luck. I was researching this stuff because my dad & uncle have two adjoining 20 acre plots of land each with a house (so 20 acres each). Due to property taxes costing so much they are trying to get the land zoned agriculture. They've been planting pineapples for the last several years but IMO it's a waste of time/space how they are doing it because there is no solid rotation on when they get fruit.

I was checking out this stuff to see if it's something they could set up and actually make money with rather than waste time with the pineapples. Both my dad & uncle have a lot of experience with fish farms so I figured aquaponics might be interesting to them.

The biggest drawback I saw to a large system like that for commercial growing is it's a lot of baby sitting compared to just growing in the dirt. It's also a lot more expensive to set up and run vs growing in dirt. On the flip side you can grow faster and get a higher yield and maybe grow year round if you can control the temps.

looks good. you can also grow lettuce in a single solo cup. i ate a lot of stax from lays. those containers are perfect! if you like lettuce get the big ass flat tote. if you need plans pm me or email is kool

Yeah it’s been a very bad year with drought here and looking forwards, the initial setup fees are bigger, but the payoff should be much greater in the long run. We did have plans to run a traditional smallholding, but the weather is just too unpredictable and a couple of years of drought would be a disaster.

Here’s another one we’ve looked into

Yea makes sense if that's the case with the drought. Here in FL since I've been here the last month & a half there hasn't been a single day we haven't had a massive rain storm. That's probably just as bad TBH.

You should check out this guy's set up if you haven't already seen it. He builds cooled LED grow light systems but has a full garden in his basement. I'm sure many weed growers would drool.

well shit the forum is breaking the direct link to the playlist..

https://www.youtube.com/user/IndoorH...rden/playlists

this is a money trap. what a waste... he has a house do a large greenhouse with the raft system. jeezus

He builds and sells those lights so I think it's a show system. Also he is pretty much growing everything he eats, so even if its pricey it pays for its self.

Vertical farming is an interesting concept.

Just bought Romain lettuce for about a buck Cdn , grown in Cali. I can buy a lot of that lettuce and not even come close, to the price of the set up, of one of these things :2 cents:

Yeah, but this is fresh and you know there wasn't any pest control chemicals used on it.