Aquaponics in Cooberpedy???

RupertofOZ

Doing a google search the other day and stumbled upon an article in the Cooberpedy Regional times (20th August 2007 - Page 10).....

http://www.cooberpedyregionaltimes.net/ ... 202007.pdf

Quote:

We had a BBQ at the Cottages, a historic preservation of
the homes of the early settlers at Andamooka and we were
kept warm by firebuckets. Mike Freeman from the
Andamooka Progress Association shared his vast
knowledge of the area as well as his concerns about the
impact of nearby large scale mining on Andamooka’s
stretched resources and infrastructure. Chris Sharp also
gave us a fascinating insight into Aquaponics, the totally
self sustainable method of fish farming where water is
filtered through growing vegetable produce.

Anyone know who "Chris Sharp" is??

KudaPucat

in Coober! FTs would be relatively cool, underground, but you'd want to protect your gravel media from the sun. Maybe the whole thing's underground, powered with skylights. That would probably make it a half decent system.
Imagine the species you could keep. With the coolness below, you could regulate the hot desert air mix, and get any temperature stable that you liked!

earthbound

Yep, Chris Sharp is a guy who loves AP, he sells water purifiers and spends a lot of time traveling around telling people about AP. I met him when he came to W.A. last year and at the moment he is over in Asia.

bbeetroot

I lived in Coober Pedy for 2 years (10 years ago though). Already then people where growing plants under artifical light and lots of plants grew in old car wrecks. The problem there is, that the town water is very hard and quite salty. Artisian Water is harvested with a RO plant = very costly.

Greetings to all Coober Pedyans - you are the best.

steve

how salty is very salty?

one of the thing that ive been wondering for a bit is will plants tolerate higher salinity in AP than dirt gardening?

i guess the problem with dirt gardening and salinity is the soil will become rubbish very quickly due to increase in salinity due to evaporation and loss of soil structure..................not necessarily the same in AP........plants will take up quite a bit of the salt evidenced by distinctly salty tasting tomatoes that ive had after a treatment with salt................

Jaymie

Ali-celt, you've got to drive through Coober Pedy in July, try to have a look at the system!

KudaPucat

bbeetroot,
Surely with a desert sun a skylight (if such things are physically possible to fit) would be more efficient than artificial lighting no?

Also would sun powered stills work well enough there to desalinate the water enough for an AP system?

Just idle thoughts really.
It would be an interesting place to live

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