Found this topic while browsing...people should get into detail on aquaponics practices. Actually there are very few in our country who have the required technical skills of practicing aquaponics. It's not just about operating the mechanical parts of the recirculating system or the chemical balance for plants fertilizer. It's also involved with the biological nature of the bacteria involved and understanding the basic actual needs of plants. Many said that some plants can't grow when being waterlogged but the actual term is the roots easily die without high oxygen in water content.

Aquaponics is great...the closest achievement of a professional aquaponics practinioner is planting a papaya tree in the system, the fruit was so heavy about 30 kg that the trunk broke from the load. Commercially it could be expensive to setup the system but once you have achieved the balance, plants and fishes will go on hyperdrive even more than hydroponics especially in a tropical environment. Putting aside issues of having to give chemical treatment for desease or pest...a healthy plant and fish could easily fight off or survive any illness. What's more there are other alternatives of getting rid of mites, mold or chewing bugs like spraying molasses to make the leaf sweeter in which strangely enough, bug hates to chew sweet leaf.

However I wish to warn people on building a recirculating system in shoplots...if it's just aquaculture but not aquaponics, you better not do it. Water in aquaponic system is so clean, clear and even safe for consumption since e-coli is only presence in mammal. The aquaponics circulation ensures that all ammonia is concerted into other stuff like nitrate. In recirculating system you need to get rid the fish poo and treat the water. A failed aquaculture system will be catastrophic especially in crowded area.

Had a fellow in mentakab industrial zone who made a mistake and decided to just flush the water into the gutter. The awful rotten smell was beyond description.

In addition to that for anyone who's starting a fishfarm in rivers, be careful for any outbreak of parasites. We had that problem in pahang last year where many fingerlings died and there was shortage of tilapia for quite a while. Get help and advice from agencies or experts because fish could easily die from pest, parasites and even low oxygen content in water due to high content of rotting vegetation especially effluence from sewage or floods or overflow from swamps (another reason to choose carefully your location, you might overlooked that hidden sewage pipe).

Maybe somebody had warned about this before but you can never be too careful. Fish are fragile creatures, even stress from handling them in nets or sudden change of temperature could kill a weak fish or fingerlings.

Just an idea from observation and theory if you'd like to test I have some suggestion, haven't got the time and space to do it myself. Papaya roots could get damaged when being waterlogged so try replace about a foot square of the soil with 20mm gravel and sand and also provide proper flow to drain away excess water. It's a practice of balance to prevent too much or too little water but I guess you can experiment...

Aquaponics could support a lot of things. One research facility also trying to discover the viability of using seawater and growing seaweed. Yet the ministry of agriculture do not seem to support this method, aquaponics efforts in our country is supported by the ministry of fishery. You might want to read this page for details:

http://harizamrry.com/2010/01/29/teknologi...ntu-masyarakat/

Confused why they are not pushing this to be practised in the urban area. Right now I'm trying to get a copy of the researcher's dissertation. The document is not yet available to the public without proper authorization.

Great news...just found another cheap method to save water for farming...stopping here to share the link...got a lot of places more to go to spread this idea...

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=454..._count=1&ref=nf

Yeah, some are using unglazed claypot as water reservoir to allow water to slowly seep into the soil but this method is much too expensive for large scale and it's usually practiced in arid region. PET would be bad but it's useful for brackish water like on island or in desert region where most waterholes are contaminated with minerals and salt. Also some fellow researcher had done in sudan during the green famine used a layer of canvas under the topsoil to prevent water from going deeper underground. I tried to use capilary irrigation method but surprisingly the water absorping rate is very fast...clean out a 1.5 liters bottles in an hour or so...anyway good luck with your papaya planting, I'm filling my spare time reading your articles, wonderful ideas you got compiled there.

Btw people should also practice using urine for fertilizer...although there are some segment of our society who sees it as unsanitary but human urine is best source of free fertilizer. I think you could find some youtube or webpage that guide on how to prepare them.