Grow Your Own Organic Food Using Aquaponics

If you are in need of a “Disease Care System” like President Obama is discussing and designing or what we have in medicare you are at a point where you are in need of taking care of the basics of your health. The place to start is at the cellular level. At this time in our world of scientific development you should even consider growing your own poison free organic food. Don’t be overwhelmed by the idea, it is possible and with the development of aquaponics science has taken the hard work out of it and designed systems in such a way that the elderly and infirm can even take control and raise their own food composed of plants and fish. I can foresee the time when all new homes will be built with and have the room for at least a basic aquaponic system. They will eventually become a necessary part of life. No matter how you slice it, the family, whether 1 or 30 is the basic building block of nations. It all starts in the family. Strong healthy families will build strong healthy nations.

I have started developing my own aquaponics system, but haven’t completed it. I am at the point where I have a 20 gallon (hydroponic) fish tank with 8 goldfish. I plan on adding a cleaner fish later. The reason that I am using goldfish is that they are hardy and will hopefully survive any mistakes that I make. Also, here in Port Charlotte, Florida, I won’t need a heater. I also have a small nursery garden that I will be using the fish water, about 5 gallons a week for fertilizing my nursery plants that are in my garden. As the fish grow in size, I will eventually transfer them to a hundred gallon aquarium which will service 2 plant grow beds and will transfer the larger goldfish into the hundred gallon tank. By then I will be fully operational with my aquaponics system; at this point, I might consider growing tilapia. They are a very good eating fish, and do well in this climate; but I’ll need a heater for the winter months. Probably 2 or 3 months a year.

This aquaponic system should produce enough organic fruits and vegetables for my personal use, and if I have any excess, I will give it to my neighbours. There are some statistics and things that you should become aware of in regard to producing organic food in this manner.

1. You can grow up to 10 times more plants in half the time with healthier plants. Your water circulating system and fish do almost all the work.
2. Your food will be organic. Organic food produces better health. You know that your food is fresh and it will taste much better.
3. You will not need fertilizer, all you will need is fish food.
4. Your water requirements will be 70 to 80 percent less than the conventional method of raising food produce. As your water evaporates, you just replace it by adding more water. Do not add chlorinated water, it will kill your fish and probably some if not all of your plants.
5. Your only time requirement on a daily basis is less than 15 minutes of checking to make sure everything is functioning properly.
6. Reduction in refrigeration of fresh food stuff, keep it in the grow beds until you are ready to use it and eat it. Harvest only what you need at the time. No need to harvest a weeks supply at a time. Of course this may require rethinking on how and when to plant many crops.
7. Your system should not be left unattended, that is the only draw back if you are a person that is away from home a lot. If you are gone, you will definitely need a very responsible person to take care of your aquaponic system while you are gone. If this is a family operation, then there must be a person in charge to insure that things are running properly. You have plants and animals that need daily attention and inspection. The health of your aquaponics system depends up on it. This operation will eventually become the most important thing in your life. Your very good health will depend upon it. The health of your whole family will depend upon it.
8. To sum it up, your cost for this operation would be a lot less than buying your fruits and vegetables at the grocery stores. Think of the time savings at the grocery store, instead you just go to your grow beds and select what you want to use at the time of the meal. Time savings could be considerable. I don’t have any statistics, but I’m sure the family food bill would go down with the quality going up. This is a huge plus.
9. A very important point. In order to remain disease and pathogen free it is necessary to feed your fish proper food. Do not allow any animal manure as used in some third world countries to be a part of your fish food. Many of these ancient cultures did not practice this due primarily to ignorance. This could possibly be the cause of worldwide pandemics of many of the horrible diseases that have ravaged the world many times over. Keep this clearly in mind if you want to be able to certify your produce and sell organic food. Here in Florida, you won’t even get a license to sell your products and would be shut down if you did. It is vital to the health of the whole world to do this right. If this catches on in the USA, we wouldn’t have to import any food at all.

Thank you for reading my blog. Brad Vigansky