I forget the thread where someone asked me about our aquaponics system. So I just started this one. It had to do with gardening of hormones in foods or something. I saw the question earlier but didn't have time to answer.
We grow tilapia fish in big tanks (we started with 350 fish or so). We have the water plumbed to grow beds where we grow veggies/flowers hydroponically. The water is filtered by the roots of the plants and is plumbed back to the fish. Cyclic action. We enjoy lots of fresh (organically grown) veggies all year long. We are taking this concept to third world countries. Already started in Haiti. We have on almost done there and will begin working with an organization there to plan five communities so the victims of the earthquake will build their own self sustaining community. If you have any more questions I'll be happy to check back here or answer any p.m.'s.

Wow! I'd love to see some pics.

What a great idea!!! :D:D:D

Awesome!

I've read about this and have seen large scale water reclamation projects. This is very cool. I wonder if it would work to repurpose some of my fish pond out back. I could give up some of the water lilies?

I live in the MidWest and we could easily reclaim the runoff water from the roofs to divert to fish tanks, however our tanks would freeze in winter(probably not solid) I know we would have to harvest most of the fish before the really cold weather sets in.

Is there a way to set this up just for a family and possibly for some produce to sell at a farmer's market? I am not interested in anything commercial, there just would not be much of a market in our rural area.

I know that things like lettuce are grown, what about the larger crops such as squash, tomato, peppers, ect? For me this is very exciting, we have plenty of yard area to do this, we even have a pond on our farm (hay) that we stock with bream and bass.

Would talapia be the only species of fish that this would be practical with? I have lots of questions!

Do you have a website on this topic and your work in Haiti? I really would like to see what you have been doing down there. Such an exciting thing, helping those folks become independant!

I am going to be out of town for a few days, but I am looking forward to learning more about this.

Wow, I would love to see pictures, that sounds so neat! LOL, I have three areogardens, the tiny commercial ones, to grow lettuce and herbs in my kitchen. I am always surprised how fast the stuff grows compared to in the dirt!

Yes, yes, yes.
Ours is in our side yard right now. We eat fish from it all the time - now that they are bigger. We are actually taking out the baby fish of the next round!! We grow eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, tons of lettuce, Swiss chard, basil (TONS of basil), parsley, green beans, some zuchinni, yellow squash, we've used the fish water in buckets to water radishes/turnips (they can't be grown in the grow beds since they are root veggies.), flowers, etc. I'll put some pics up here - you can all PM me if you have questions - this can be done up north too - however tilapia may not be the choicest of fish - they like warm water.
Here are some pics from Haiti - I'll post more of OURS later - need to go make cookies this minute.

okay, I'm waiting for lots of details, this sounds like something my husband would enjoy.

Kathy,
What kind of details would you like? I can help if I can - I can ask my husband about anything I don't know about!! It's so neat - hope you guys can do it!!