Sustainably grow healthy veggies with ease
Uses 10x less water that soil gardens
Grow veggies 4x faster than soil gardens
Bursting with flavour
No pesticides or wax affecting your health. Just real food continuous crop, no waiting a month every time for seeds to grow
Organic food at your fingertips, no needing to travel to various stores for healthy food.
Minimal maintenance (just 5 mins a day!)
Easy to build and maintain
Fresh healthy veg at your fingertips - No need to go to store
Fast, delicious, healthy food at your fingertips
Protect the environment
Reduce your grocery bill by having fresh, healthy food constantly
The joy of having fish to relax and watch
If we rent the landlord may not approve
There is often a huge outlay of money that people don't mention for soil gardening
Ongoing costs of container gardening if you live in small spaces
You may not be able to dig in the soil, get on your knees to do things, bend over, or grip things with your hands
Aquaponics can show you this perfectly!
How the different elements work together
Basic designs (including pros and cons of each)
Where to start
Parts needed
Filtration
Creating the Ecosystem (colonising with nitrifying bacteria)
It's an online program that you can watch in your own time, your own safe space when you are in the right space.
It gently pushes you out of your comfort zone to learn something new, gain new skills, in a time and place that feels comfortable for you
You don't need to force yourself to function to fit in with someone else's time
You get to be active within the online Facebook group when you choose
It's self paced so you choose when you watch it and when you build it
With the help of your support worker, it is easy to maintain once built
Your A-Z, step-by-step blueprint to build and look after your own aquaponics system.
Getting the maximum amount of veggies growing in your small space.
Using less water to grow healthy, luscious veggies that you didn't think was possible.
Knowing what is on, or not on your food.
Having the convenience of walking out into your courtyard, and getting food for dinner.
Saving money by growing what you love to eat, when you didn't think you'd be able to.
"From my Welfare and Youth Work, I've been passionate about helping people to live the best life they could.
Then professionally trained within aquaculture, and commercial aquaponics my passion turned to helping all people have access to healthy food.
As someone with autism, PTSD and Anxiety disorders, I know the challenges that arise in trying to learn new things, and the desire to achieve your goals.
Now, my passion is to break it all down and give you the simple, easiest version to start your food security and aquaponics journey ~ and to help you build your capacity to do this. "
The best type of aquaponics is when we look after the fish. With anything, there are good apples and bad apples. Candy has formal training within aquaculture and aquatic husbandry, her ethics and integrity is based on animal welfare. This means to teach you how to be ethical with your aquatic husbandry. To not over stock or crowd your fish, but find the balance needed to maintain your aquaponics systems, in a healthy way for the fish.
Aquaponics is the most sustainable way we have of gardening these days. Our soil is depleted and often contaminated and needed rest and rejuvenation, gardening adds to its stress. With many areas experiencing water restrictions, droughts, weather extremes that the soil cannot manage, aquaponics is closed loop and not impacting the environment. It helps to remove the stresses. Aquaponics is a man-made (or woman-made) ecosystem, replicating nature. Not to be confused with hydroponics, which is an artificial setup using synthetic nutrients to grow veggies. No fish or no ecosystem.
Being a closed loop system, water is constantly flowing through each section of the aquaponics system, and not running down a drain. The only times you need to top up your aquaponics system, is for water loss due to evapouration and the water used by the plants. No more wasting water. Recycled and filled with fertiliser from the fish waste that the veggies use.
Almost any type of veggies can be grown within aquaponics, including root crops and even small fruit trees. You need to build your aquaponics system to cater for these veggies and fruit trees, but it is possible. From broccoli to turnips with everything in between. While you CAN grow almost anything, a pearl of wisdom for you ~ don't grow anything from the mint family. It is more invasive within aquaponics than it is the soil, and will clog your plumbing.
Absolutely! Everything we do in life, is a learned skill. That includes caring for fish. We learn how to do it. Starting off small, with fish that are cheaper is a good way to start if you are nervous, and within time you will start shooting for the stars with your desire for relaxation with your fish.
The hard question to answer ~ but also the exciting one. You aquaponics system can be as big or small as you like. With the fundamentals in place, you can build something for your desk or kitchen bench, a feature for your loungeroom, fill up your entire spare bedroom, your courtyard area, or build it to feed your family and the neighbours too! You build it to the space you have, and the size you want to give it. You are not offered a kit, you are taught here how to work out the size that will work for you, and how to adapt parts to your space.
Keeping aquaponics simple, easy and broken down is my desire for you. Keeping aquaponics simple is the easiest thing you can do. Stay in the flow, and the the ecosystem do the work. Many people tend to complicate aquaponics by altering layouts, adding extra bits, which is fine (I do this too), but it tends to complicate it more. Aquaponics at its roots (pardon the pun), can be extremely simple to build and simpler to run. Especially when you start small and learn how it works.
The main ongoing cost is the water pump, especially for smaller systems. The larger the system, the larger the pump which will increase the cost. The small Courtyard Aquaponics System water pump costs me $10 per year to run. You can check a watts calculator to see what it will cost. Costs of seeds, fish food, and fish if you plan to eat your fish. However, if they are your 'friends', then a one off fish cost is it.
The smaller size system that you start with, the cheaper it will be. You can also use recycled materials to be more sustainable and eco-conscious, as well as save money. If this reason, it is hard to give a price as we don't sell kits. It is DIY so you can choose the parts you want, with some guidance. Every aquaponics system I have ever built (15 years worth), have paid for itself so many times over that I've lost count, and I usually have veggies spare for the neighbours.
Aquaponics is a freshwater ecosystem, so you need to use freshwater fish. If you have your aquaponics system outside, choose a fish that is local to your area, otherwise they may be affected by temperature issues. If inside, then there are so many options. With the ornamental fish, there are so many options available from guppies to crayfish.
Copyright 2023 | Candy Alexander | All Rights Reserved Email: ask@theaquaponicslady.com