Salt water system

[craigb]

I wonder how it would go running a salt / sea water fish tank. Admittedly you wouldn't be able to run it through the grow beds - however it may be possible to get Mullet and Bass to spawn if you caused them to go from fresh water into salt. Once spawned you could then send them back into the fresh water.

Perhaps you would have to gradually build the salt levels up to do so to mimic the time it takes for the fish to acclimatise to the increasing salt levels like they would in a natural river system.

Has any one tried growing saltwater fish?

[echidna]

I wonder how it would go running a salt / sea water fish tank. Admittedly you wouldn't be able to run it through the grow beds - however it may be possible to get Mullet and Bass to spawn if you caused them to go from fresh water into salt. Once spawned you could then send them back into the fresh water.

Perhaps you would have to gradually build the salt levels up to do so to mimic the time it takes for the fish to acclimatise to the increasing salt levels like they would in a natural river system.

Has any one tried growing saltwater fish?

Do some research on halophytes/halophites. Some quite interesting species available.

[craigb]

Thanks Echidna.

I had a look at it and there could be a few possibilities. One being the zygo type cactus / plants and pig face etc.

The other idea I had is that it may be possible to grow some form of sea weed. Some lagoons and rocky coastal areas have sea weed that is left high and dry when the tides go out - yet recovers when the tide comes back in. Perhaps it could tolerate a flood system where the plants get totally immersed. This sea weed could be used to feed the fish and to make nutrient rich compost.

More thinking is needed.

[Murray]

Martin at aquaponics-shop is setting up an experimental salt water system. He may have it running by now. As I understand it the sea weed and the fish are the crops. Evidently the sea weed does the same job as the grow beds do in a freshwater system.

[maxwell]

I remember a story of some guy who was growing citrus/dates or something in the middle of Australia using salt water.
If the water can drain through,the plant can suvive quite well.
May be interesting if you wanted to grow citrus with salt water aquaponics.
Cheers
Max

[aquaponics-shop]

Hi All,

We have finally commenced our salt water aquaponics system. Of course it is too early to say how it will go but we are confident that we will be able to make it work. The first pictures can be seen on our site for those who are interested:

http://www.aquaponics-shop.com/aquap...research.shtml

We will keep you all posted as to our progress.

Cheers

Martin and Kerri

[Hamish]

That is very interesting - what is Ulva? Some sort of sea weed? Does it have a comercial value?

Interested to know what else could be grown in a system like this - would be good for those who live in areas near the sea that could pipe sea water into their system.

[aquaponics-shop]

That is very interesting - what is Ulva? Some sort of sea weed? Does it have a comercial value?

Interested to know what else could be grown in a system like this - would be good for those who live in areas near the sea that could pipe sea water into their system.

Hi Hamish,

Ulva is a macro algae commonly known as "Sea Lettuce". It has many uses. One is that it can be eaten "fresh", for example in Scotland it is used in soups and salads, as well as "dried", like Nori (the dried sea weed that goes around Sushi and is used in a number of Asian soups etc).

We are going to be experimenting here with a number of different macro algae and some sea grass as well. We recently designed and installed an experimental salt water system into Coffs Harbour. I must stress that salt water aquaponics is completely experimental at this point in time.

They have three beds and we designed one of them to ebb and flow so they could experiment with growing Mangroves. The other beds are continuous flow and will have macro algae and sea grass in them like ours here. Of course Mangroves in these systems are completely for experimental purposes only. We can not see commercial viability for them at the size of systems we can build. Again time will tell.

Cheers

Martin and Kerri

[anniefish]

Wow,
sooo, we could grow our own nori, rice and fillers - I'd have my very own sushi bar. yum.

[Mr Big]

I have a small salt water research system that I am just about to put into production.

Senior Scientist Dr Amir Neori from the Israel Oceanographic & Limnological Research center has been doing salt water aquaponics for years he is the man with 20 years experience. I meet him about four years ago in Sydney when he gave a talk on salt water aquaponics.

Research interests:
Mariculture of seaweeds and micro-algae
Ecologically-balanced integrated mariculture of fish, seaweeds and shellfish
Selected publications:

Msuya F.E. and Neori A. (2008). Effect of water aeration and nutrient load level on biomass yield, N uptake and protein content of the seaweed Ulva lactuca cultured in seawater tanks. J. Appl. Phycol. (In press).

Neori A. Essential role of seaweed cultivation in integrated multi-trophic aquaculture farms for global expansion of mariculture: an analysis. J. Appl. Phycol. (In press).

Shpigel, M. and Neori, A. (2007). Microalgae, macroalgae, and bivalves as biofilters in land-based mariculture in Israel. Chapter 24 In: Ecological and Genetic Implications of Aquaculture Activities (Bert, T.M., Ed). Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 433-446.


Neori, A. and Shpigel, M. (2006). Algae: key for sustainable mariculture. In: Seaweed Resources of the World, Critchley, A.T., Ohno, M. and Largo, D.B., (Eds), ETI Bioinformatics, University of Amsterdam (a book on DVD).

Murray I owe you a piture of your trays they are going well Thanks

Hope this has helped some one