
Arduino-based, urban aquaponics in Oakland - bane
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/internet-food-arduino-based-urban-aquaponics-in-oakland/
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cs702
If I understand correctly, this 'aquaponics' solution:

* does not require arable land, because the plants grow on containers filled with stones through which water constantly circulates;

* uses _an order of magnitude less_ water than traditional agriculture, because the water is constantly recycled back from a nearby fish tank, and because the rock layer prevents water from evaporating;

* allows plant density (i.e., number of plants per unit of area) _an order of magnitude_ greater than traditional agriculture, because plant roots don't have to work as hard to find nutrients, so they grow straight down;

* does not attract traditional bug pests or weeds, because there is no wet soil to attract them;

* makes plants grow much faster, because they're getting a constant supply of nutrients fed through the water recycling system; and

* is also an inexpensive fish-farming solution!

Unless I'm missing something big, this solution looks BRILLIANT to me. All it
needs now is for a talented entrepreneur to come in, find an early-adopter
market for it, and turn the technology into a _standardized product_ that can
be sold at scale.

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jivatmanx
Indeed, the economics of hydroponics would suggest that it should already
dominate commercial vegetable production. The main reason they're not, is
because municipalities greatly undervalue water, and because agriculture is so
highly subsidized and so it's hard for hydroponics to compete.

1\. Underselling water

Municipal water prices set by local government greatly undervalue the actual
rarity of water. With so many aquifers running out, and rivers stretched to
the max, especially in the west, I'm surprised there could be this much myopia
on an issue that is clearly far more serious and immediate issue than energy.
Right now the only pressure to reduce water use seems to be on consumers
(watering policies, low-water use appliances), but they only use 11% of it.

2\. Subsidized agriculture.

This is a more well known issue so I don't think I need to repeat it here.

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gukjoon
The real question is whether aquaponics can create higher quality food than
organic produce, which is not subsidized. Subsidies are also unsustainable in
the long run. The major costs in aquaponics are in the technology, which will
inevitably get cheaper. If aquaponic agriculture truly represents an order of
magnitude improvement in water use and space use, and can produce better food,
it's only a matter of time before not even subsidies can keep traditional
agriculture economically sustainable.

This is just what I needed to see after the front page of HN was dominated by
bullshit about Surface and iPad mini. Finally, technology used to make
something other than toys for bored rich people.

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jivatmanx
Yes, hydroponics produces the best possible quality food that can be made.
Being a closed system, it also doesn't require pesticides so it's essentially
organic anyhow.

You are correct that Organic produce is the obvious immediate competitor. I
wonder if hydroponically grown good can be labeled as organic. it could
certainly come with no label at all.

As to whether there's a marketing benefit to actually being labeled as
hydroponically grown, I've no idea.

As for subsidies, I assume that Organic food takes advantage of all of the
same subsidies as non-organically grown food.

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jivatmanx
I wonder if it would be smart to labeled it "Organic Hydroponically grown" or
"Hydroponically Grown Organic" or something similar

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twentysix
You can find more info about Aquaponics here

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYR9s6chrI0>

<http://www.aquaponics.net.au/forum/>

<http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/>

Murray Halams DVD's are a great resource for beginners, though his systems can
be improved. <http://www.aquaponics.net.au/product/prod105.htm>

This DVD tracks an Aquaponics system that was installed over a period of 1
year <http://www.aquaponics.net.au/product/prod158.htm>

Unlike hydroponics this being an almost closed system makes it more efficient.
You can use solar panels to run the motors.

But this system requires one to check the ph and ammonia levels of the water
daily and maintain the balance of the system.

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chad_oliver
Well, it's a closed system expect for the sunlight, which is arguably the most
important component of any agricultural system.

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ctrlaltesc
You still have to feed the fish, so it's not really closed. But it is
reasonably self-contained in combination with using vegetable waste to breed
fly larvae which go on to feed the fish.

The difficult thing about aquaponics is the cyclomatic complexity (to use a
software term). Basically everything feeds into everything else. At first you
might think that the system is in balance, but in fact it rarely is. Plants
and fish will be added and removed regularly, each agent having different
nutritional needs at different stages in their lifecycle. Disease or
infestation of plants or animals can be difficult to deal with, as any
pesticide or herbicide will cycle through the complete system. There simply
aren't any cheap off-the-shelf sensors to monitor things you care about, so
you need to do regular physical checks with chemical kits.

Aquaponics is a fun, but very hard, problem to solve correctly. You can learn
a lot from it, and it is a great system for people who like to learn a bit
about everything.

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delinka
Allow me to nitpick about physical checks with _chemical_ kits-- I'm sure we
can build a sensor for that. The potential problem I see, however, is that by
the time you detect a dangerous chemical change, it's too late. Visual
inspection is still important (to see that Nemo's gimpy fin is caused by an
infection rather than a birth defect) until we figure out AI enough to detect
certain kinds of things.

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sschueller
There is a swiss startup doing this on a larger scale:
<http://urbanfarmers.ch/>

They have a container farm in a box
(<http://urbanfarmersbox.ch/flyer/UFB_EN.pdf>).

Sadly their Crowdfunding Initiative – Globe didn't get funded:
<http://www.indiegogo.com/HEDRON>

However they are in the process if building a large roof top version in Basel:
<https://www.facebook.com/UrbanFarmers>

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zbowling
I know this guy. I competed with him at a hackathon two months ago. He built
of automated power tracking tools to tell you your power usage and would turn
off lights and things. Took home second place. I ended up winning with my
solar subsidy ipad calculator (told if you could save money in your local area
if you bought an electric car and install solar panels in your home over
gasoline and unsubsidized power). Was fun as hell. Pounded out a lot of code
over a few beers on a weekend.

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emillon
That is quite an awesome system ! I wonder how efficient this is. But it
tackles the toxicity issue that exists with usual hydroponics systems.

Here is another implementation :

[http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/backyard-aquaponics-
diy...](http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/backyard-aquaponics-diy-system-
to-raise-fish-with-veggies/)

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xutopia
What toxicity issues exist with hydroponics? I know nothing about growing
plants.

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emillon
When you grow plants with no soil (only neutral substrate such as clay or
gravel), it is necessary to provide extra nutrients (esp. nitrates) that are
hard to dispose properly. In the case of vegetables or edible plants, it is
also necessary to "rinse" the system by running only water through eat before
it's ready for consumption. (Disclaimer : I'm not a hydroponics specialist.)

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blhack
This might be a controversial thing to say here, but I think that clandestine
marijuana farmers are really heavily pushing the limits of urban agriculture.

The things you're working for when growing pot:

1) A minimal energy footprint. A giant power bill is a dead giveaway that
you're running grow lamps

2) Maximum plant density -- lots of plants close together is good for both
absorbing light and using space. More plants = more money.

Obviously that isn't what this person is growing, but I find pot growers to be
an interesting bunch. They're ag-hackers, and they seem to be really good at
it, and really good at trading information about it.

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sv123
Hydroponics is a great space for hackers, never realized how much I would
enjoy growing veggies, legal or otherwise.

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wickedbass
It's super cool but spoiler alert: just youtube aquaponics, it's not new
(thank's reddit). People have been doing it even commercially for over a
decade. That said I think what he says about future generations learning and
getting excited about farming techniques is important and it's a really
awesome concept.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think about building one of these after
first learning about it! Also thinking how to maximize produce per/sqft/unit
etc..

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amalag
I think access to cheap, small and powerful computers would probably improve
and it make it turnkey. My guess is it is pretty complicated to get all the
factors right. Figuring out things like why are my fish dying, why is there a
disease in my lettuce, etc., can get complicated.

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motters
To build smart agriculture systems I think more needs to be known about the
food chain. If you had a large inventory of the inputs and outputs for each
organism then it would be possible to design miniature ecosystems which work
cooperatively and minimize waste - like the fish and plants idea - while also
producing whatever type of produce you want.

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LaRakel
Yeah, that's the basic idea behind both permaculture and aquaponics: Build a
tiny ecosystem that can sustain itself with as little input as possible (and
like all agriculture, obviously with useful output like food as well).

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dustin
Very interesting stuff. Got interested in permaculture a couple years ago, and
this seems a great complement in many ways.

Obviously much more sustainable than how most people get their food. I wonder
what the energy & water requirements for this sort of system are.

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jrockway
_The land in West Oakland where Eric Maundu is trying to farm is covered with
freeways, roads, light rail and parking lots so there’s not much arable land
and the soil is contaminated._

There is no light rail in Oakland. BART is heavy rail.

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ryanhuff
I also assumed systems like BART were considered "light rail". Below is a
definition for others who may also not know the difference.

The American Public Transit Association defines light rail and heavy rail
respectively as follows:

Light Rail is a mode of transit service (also called streetcar, tramway, or
trolley) operating passenger rail cars singly (or in short, usually two-car or
three-car, trains) on fixed rails in right-of-way that is often separated from
other traffic for part or much of the way. Light rail vehicles are typically
driven electrically with power being drawn from an overhead electric line via
a trolley or a pantograph; driven by an operator on board the vehicle; and may
have either high platform loading or low level boarding using steps.

Heavy Rail is a mode of transit service (also called metro, subway, rapid
transit, or rapid rail) operating on an electric railway with the capacity for
a heavy volume of traffic. It is characterized by high speed and rapid
acceleration passenger rail cars operating singly or in multi-car trains on
fixed rails; separate rights-of-way from which all other vehicular and foot
traffic are excluded; sophisticated signaling, and high platform loading.

Reference: <http://metro-cincinnati.org/?p=1566>

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Kototama
I really enjoy seeing how the simplicity and power of Arduino empower people.
Also how objects become an active medium instead of becoming a consumed
things.

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swalsh
On the other hand it would seem that this guy would have been empowered even
without arduino. In the video he mentioned he has a background in robotics.

~~~
Kototama
True but in general the Arduino community is very lowering the bar for these
kind of things.

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rms
I'm very curious to see how this kind of thing scales. I've yet to see what I
think are truly sustainable plans for vertical farming but I'm hoping they
come soon.

