The IBC of Aquaponics

Backyard Aquaponics has released an awesome manual on aquaponics, featuring 43 (yes, forty-three) systems made with Intermediate Bulk Containers or IBCs, appropriately called The IBC of Aquaponics. Even though I dont have an IBC system, I think IBCs are great. In fact, Ill be helping teach an aquaponics workshop in May where well be creating about a dozen IBC systems.

Why the IBC of Aquaponics is Cool - A list.

1. The manual is free. Thats always cool in my book.
2. The introduction and appendix contain great (and pretty) information about aquaponics - all that stuff experienced aquapons have forgotten they ever had to learn.
3. There are great pictures and write-ups on all the systems.
4. Many of the articles about systems include hyperlinks to youtube videos, sketch-up models, and forum discussions about the systems.

Check out this cool chart, showing the relationship between nutrient availability and system pH. Ive seen charts like this before and simplified the message in my own mind to "6.5 is good." But this version of the chart is absolutely lovely.

This level of professionalism and beauty continues through the rest of the document. If creating an aquaponics system out of an IBC tote appeals to you, you can browse several dozen different configurations, and even create a 3-D version of how your system could look (Google Sketch-up required).

If you live in the DC area and would like to participate in the May IBC workshop, drop me a line. Totes will be provided as part of the workshop!

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Aquaponics Synergies with Other Topics

At left:

Example of a book you could look to for info on creating a 365 aquaponics system

I love aquaponics. But when youre looking to create your aquaponic garden, you can pull from numerous other resources. One of my favorite topics is year-round gardening.

I love the idea of being able to have vegetables (and fish...) during late fall, winter, and early spring. Most of the current aquaponics literature talks about growing in climates that are warm throughout much of the year, which makes it easy to have your fish and veggies year round. But what do you do when the temperature plummets to crazy low?

Last time I mentioned the Gaisma.com site. The interface is a bit clunky, but I love being able to look at climate information for any major city anywhere in the world. So if Im reading a book written by Eliot Coleman of Four Season Farm, for example, I can look up his address in google maps, find the closest major city, and see what his climate is. In Eliot Colemans case, thats either Augusta or Bangor, ME. If the lengths of his days and his temperatures are similar, I can have some confidence that the solutions hes developed can be applied to my situation.

On the other hand, if the person giving me advice on winter crops has their garden on the equator, I may want to be a bit more sceptical about whether the measures that work for them will be adequate for me.

PS - I havent posted much lately for various reasons. But the most trivial reason for my silence is running up against my google.com storage limit. Getting me and my credit card and the website to buy more space together all at the same time wasnt working. Luckily for me, Google has shifted to their "Google Drive" concept, along with 5GB of free space (I think it was 1GB before). Ill still be absent a bit for the next few weeks for the other reasons Ive been hiding. Towards the end of June, however, you can expect to hear from me more regularly.

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