Sustainable Freshwater Aquaculture

Discussion in 'Jobs, projects, courses, training, WWOOFing, volun' started by Fern O., Jul 10, 2007.

  1. Fern O.

    Fern O. Junior Member

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    Nick Romanowski will be conducting two Aquaculture workshops in the Otways.

    The first one will be on Tuesday 14th of August as part of the Otways PDC in Apollo Bay, and the second one will be on Thursday November 22nd at Barwon Downs (Otways, Southwest Victoria, Australia).

    Please contact Fern Rainbow (ph:0425 710 380) for more details.

    Below is Nick Romanowski’s critique on theoretical and applied polyculture in permaculture. From pages 129 to 130 of “Sustainable Freshwater Aquaculture”, his 9th and latest book released earlier this year.

    “Although commercial growers have experimented with polyculture in recent years, it has more usually been the province of small-scale growers and backyarders hoping to harvest a greater diversity of foods from a pond or two. Most aquatic polyculture ideas have been strongly influenced by permaculture, a home-grown synthesis of proven and traditional agricultural practices with a theorectical overlay of broader design issues and biological concepts.

    There has been some problems with the way these ideas have been joined, particularly in the field of aquaculture. I won’t repeat more detailed criticisms from my earlier book Farming in ponds and dams here, but it is important to emphasise that most of these plans and ideas have not been tested even some 30 years later, and that they give a false idea of the productivity of pond systems.

    For example, author W Mollison in Permaculture: a designer’s manual states that ‘an intensively managed fish pond of 100 square metres comes close to providing a full protein and vegetable source’ for the whole family, from which ‘modest yields of 300-2000 kilograms of protein … can be reasonably be expected’(my italics). Scaling this up, anyone with a practical background in aquaculture will immediately recognise that such a ‘modest’ figure of 200 tonnes of protein per hectare is vastly greater than even the best managed Chinese carp polyculture could achieve – yet Mollison claims that even higher yields could be achieved just by adding aeration!

    Not surprisingly, most permaculture people who have experimented with aquaculture have started out with totally unrealistic expectations, with little notion of water quality issues. Reports of such failed experiments as throwing rotting fruit into a silver perch pond to drown fruit fly were not uncommon a decade ago (the fish died). Other recommended but undesirable and sometimes bizarre practices, such as building compost bins in shallow water, breeding fruit flies on floating rafts, and housing pigs, ducks or chickens over the pond so their manure will fertilise the system, are also to be avoided.

    Beyond these fundamental issues, many permaculture ideas are founded on biological principles applied sometimes inappropriately. For example, the same manual suggests that productivity of a pond could be increased by including multi-rayed bays around a central pond. What is not considered is that the living space for the larger, edible species is reduced in such a design for any given surface area, while the convoluted shoreline encourages weedy plant growth and provides more protected habitat for undesirable predators such as mudeyes. It is not for nothing that nearly all aquaculture systems in the world, including traditional ones, lay ponds out in simple circles and rectangles.

    On the positive side, this manual remains a valuable and often stimulating source of ideas for placing aquaculture in the broader perspective, whether on a small-scale homestead or a large commercial farm. Among other virtues, it promotes an integrated approach to the use of water not only for aquaculture, but also in the context of fire protection, frost control and microclimate modification for plants which are marginal in a colder climate, as well as human habitat.”

    [Quoted with permission from Nick Romanowski]
     
  2. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Hi Fern,

    Sounds like an interesting course. I hope it is fully subscribed!

    Good luck!

    Christopher
     
  3. Fern O.

    Fern O. Junior Member

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  4. nibs

    nibs Junior Member

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    just for clarification:

    For example, author W Mollison in Permaculture: a designer’s manual states that ‘an intensively managed fish pond of 100 square metres comes close to providing a full protein and vegetable source’ for the whole family, from which ‘modest yields of 300-2000 kilograms of protein … can be reasonably be expected’(my italics). Scaling this up, anyone with a practical background in aquaculture will immediately recognise that such a ‘modest’ figure of 200 tonnes of protein per hectare is vastly greater than even the best managed Chinese carp polyculture could achieve – yet Mollison claims that even higher yields could be achieved just by adding aeration!

    how did 2 tonnes turn into 200 tonnes?
     
  5. Terra

    Terra Moderator

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    A hectare is 10000 square metres
    Regards Terra
     
  6. Duckpond

    Duckpond Junior Member

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    I currently am using duck poo to fertilize my hydroponic veggie garden. It works extreemly well. The hydroponics cleans my pond water magnificently and i get 3 large eggs per day approx 80 grams each.
    80 x 3 = 240 grams per day
    240 x 7 = 1680 grams per week
    1680 x 35 laying weeks per year = 588000 grams of protien per year
    58800 grams = 59 kilos.

    I also get a large proportion of my vegetables too. I have no weight calculations, but estimate 1 lettuce per day

    This is in a 3 square meter pond plus 8 square meter hydro tanks. Total water in the system is 600lt.

    If i can do this in my smal duck pond with excess capacity for more ducks i can believe that 300+ kg per year is possible using aquaponics.

    Aquaponics is a very intensive growing method that i think uses permaculture principals very wel. ie it uses the waste from one source (ducks, fish marron) and uses it as the input to another source (veggies) the net input is food for the fish or ducks and the net output is fish, eggs, and veggies. fish waste can be coked into fish food or composted seperatly. any veggie scraps can be fed to ducks or fish, or composted.

    This really works
     
  7. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    FWIW, I have Nick Romanowski's latest book - Sustainable Freshwater Aquaculture - and while it's a good introduction and overview of home and commercial Aquaculture, the very brief parts where he discusses Aquaponics are extremely disappointing IMO.

    He basically dismisses it entirely due to needing a whole bunch of high-tech equipment which it really doesn't - he's way behind the times for both commercial Aquaponics and backyard.

    It was a pretty big downside of the book IMO...especially considering the title is apparently sustainability and Aquaponics does so much for Aquaculture in this respect.

    Having said that, it's still an excellent book on Aquaculture...well written and full of helpful advice on all the necessary topics if you're new to the field. It's just a big shame that an 'expert' has such a blind spot to the most important development that's ever happened in his industry.

    Anyway, that's all intended as constructive criticism, which I'd guess is the same reason he raised his concerns over Bill's past statements.
     
  8. Fern O.

    Fern O. Junior Member

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    Nick has told me that he's going to delve into and discuss Aquaponics more (and it's sustainability) at his workshop on Nov 22nd. If you come to it, you'll also get to see his property and nursery "Dragonfly Aquatics" and talk and discuss with the man yourself, rather than just reading his book... there's always only so much you can put in a book, and the book has been released for about a year now.
     
  9. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    I'm glad to hear he's going to deal with it in more detail Fern, but I hope he understands what aquaponics actually entails, because it's obvious in the book that he didn't when he wrote it:

    It's not waste water - it's recirculated over and over again...from the fish tank to the grow beds, back to the fish pond and so on. That's half the point...eliminating the drawbacks from aquaculture (water wastage), hydroponics (chemicals etc) and watering plants in soil (loss of water).

    There's no need for storing waste water in a holding tank, you either pump when required (flood and drain) or continuously. Similarly, when you have a genuine recirculating system, there's certainly no need for high-tech computerised nutrient adding - just gradually add measured doses to the tank(s) by calculating volume etc.

    Many of the plant's nutrient needs are taken care of by the fish waste, with only very occasional additions needed. But still, that's a whole lot better usage of fish waste water than any other comparable system.

    -------------------

    Considering all the good work people have done to promote aquaponics, as I said, it's a shame that Nick did deal with it in the book and totally mischaracterised the entire discipline. It's also a shame in that aquaponics could do so much to solve aquaculture's biggest problems - very high water usage and dealing with high nutrient content in waste water.

    Aquaponics has been around for decades and there's quite a few successful commercial and hobbyist systems around Australia, so it was surprising to me that a man who quite obviously knows so much about aquaculture could get things so wrong regarding aquaponics.

    I would like to come to the workshop and see Nick's setup(s), but being on the other side of the country it's not an expense (both financial and time-wise) I can justify ATM. I would certainly be interested to know how Nick's thoughts on aquaponics have developed over the past year.

    Anyway, good onya for setting up the workshop Fern, I'm sure your students down there will get a lot out of it. My comments were never meant to insinuate otherwise, because in terms of aquaculture, Nick certainly knows his stuff and communicates it well.
     
  10. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    If this guy wrote the below, it is obvious he has not ever seen an aquaponics :wav: system. While perhaps the added expense of pumps and grow beds don't make sense in rural area with a large pond and low stocking densities, in any urban area, or arid area, or in a pond with very high stocking densities, the filtration service of hydroponic grow beds, the other leg of the synthesis of aquaponics :wav:, would both provide a suitable source os nutrients for an assortment of veggies while increasing the stocking density of any pond, and such an investment would be recovered with time in increased veggie and fish production.

    It's unfortunate that he would write something so patently untrue, and so easily researched.
    This is completely wrong, and does a disservice to anyone reading it, as they may believe this gibberish, and, further, is insulting to those who have made this incredible food production modality their life work, and, lastly, calls in to question anything else he has written. If he is so wrong about this, what else is he wrong about?

    Aquaponics :wav: is one of the most promising advances in food production for urban and/or arid situations to be developed in many years. Pioneers in this technology, especially Joel Malcolm (https://www.backyardaquaponics.com :wav: , hurry now! Operators are STANDING BY!!), have absolutely incredible production levels in small spaces. Their work is going to be increasingly important in a post peak petroleum world.

    Nick should get some exposure, maybe even visit Joel himself, to aquaponics :wav: before making silly pronouncements like this.
     
  11. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    Yeah, it was a big concern for me too Chris (though I did hesitate for months to bring it up seeing this thread is promoting a great course), but I must say that Nick IS undoubtedly an expert on aquaculture and everything in the book gels with all the other material I've read on aquaculture.

    Personally, I wouldn't begin to call that side of things into question...he knows his stuff.

    I suspect this is just a case of an expert with a long history in a discipline, who has been slow to work out (assuming he has worked it out) that a good chunk of what he has learnt and taught has been turned completely on its head by something (aquaponics) which hasn't quite filtered through to the mainstream aquaculture industry - though it is clearly beginning to.

    I raised the issue mostly because it couldn't be good for anyone concerned to have people like Joel, Geoff Lawton and Josh Byrne promoting aquaponics as the amazing advancement which it is, while an academic and author from an aquaculture industry background may be teaching Permaculture units which totally misrepresent and thereby dismiss the entire concept of aquaponics.

    Hopefully, from what Fern has said, Nick is a bit more aware these days, is up to date on what aquaponics is actually about, and has incorporated it into his teaching/writing.
     
  12. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Well, I hope that Nick has increased his awareness of aquaponics :wav:. The work that Joel and others are doing is really incredible, and the quoted text indicates that at the time of writing, he had not a clue as to what he was talking about.

    We would all be soooo happy if we would just all just release our attachmen to our own individual views and submit to His Aquaponic :wav: Eminence, His Holiness, the Bagwan Joel..... :love1: :hippy2:
     
  13. TonyZ

    TonyZ Guest

    has anyone approached the Stametsian model for feeding the fish, throwing rotten (overgrown) fungi raised in wood chip beds, where the fish feed on the fungi and the larvae the floating insect rafts provide? It seems pretty simple. In my aquaculture experiments in New Orleans, we are going to incorporate this model, and report it here. The fungi, if bed are planted on the banks of the ponds, will naturally filter out the water, and help reestablish a self-reciprocating system.
     
  14. Fern O.

    Fern O. Junior Member

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    Thanks everyone... the upcoming workshop is fully subscribed.
    I'll send this topic link to Nick for his awareness.
    blessings
    Fern
     
  15. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    Good onya Fern, I hope the workshops and the PDC all go very well, you've done a grea job. :thumbright:
     
  16. Fern O.

    Fern O. Junior Member

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    Thanks Jez, I really appreciate your support... especially when I've just received an abusive, derogatory and really nasty email from someone who doesn't know me and hasn't attended any of the courses that I've run. :?
    But I suppose that negativity balances all the positive responses and thankyous that I've received from those who have attended the courses.
    We even got a thankyou letter and donation from one of our conservative councillors who came to the public talk by David Holmgren last friday night.
    He said that he found the night very inspiring and was impressed by what a developed system permaculture has evolved into since the last permaculture talk that he went to 30 years ago by Bill Mollison.
     
  17. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    I'm very sorry to hear that Fern...it's not nice to cop those sorts of personal attacks when you're trying to the best of your ability to do something good.



    That's all terrific mate, especially the councillor because as you'd know all too well, they're very useful to have on your side. I hope what you've started down there continues to grow and is a big success.
     

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