Survivalist Skills - How To Use Aquaponics To Grow Fish And Vegetables For Your Table

A lot of preppers are great hunters or anglers, but that's not enough! Do you always manage to find prey? My guess is no. There are most likely many days where you get nothing for your hard work. That's just how it goes as a hunter gatherer, which is why human beings learned the art of agriculture. It takes work, but it's not hard and you can do it too. If your hunting ground runs a little dry how nice would it be to know you can grow your own fresh vegetables and fish? Instead of going hungry, because of a bad hunt now you can still keep healthy and strong.

Survivalist Skills: Aquaponics 101 for preppers

What is aquaponics? Aquaponics is a system in which fish and plants are grown together. The fish fertilize the plants, and the plants clean the water for the fish. Fish fertilizer is some of the best nutrients you can get for growing any kind of plant! That means that not only do you get fat, tasty fish to use as back up protein, but you also get delicious vegetables of all kinds. The concept of aquaponics is easy, people often complicate this with all manner of pumps and automated equipment. If you'd like to go this route it's not very hard to set up. It can even run on solar power to use your pumps. Honestly though, you could even just keep fish in a large outdoor swimming pool and water plants from the tank and get the same result.

You can use many types of fish, but I'd say the best are tilapia or catfish. Tilapia are fast growing fish, they breed readily, and you can get a nice amount of meat from them. Catfish have the added benefit of being surface breathers. Which means you could technically farm them without an airpump. Some people have claimed to stock them in barrels! They are extremely hardy and good eating in my opinion.

Different aquaponics setups

There's a couple different setups for aquaponics. Which one is best depends on what you want to grow. You could use a 'floating bed' method. This means that a large piece of foam floats on top of the water. You cut holes in the top for net pots. You then put your vegetables in these, and they grow on top of the water collecting nutrients. Pros, super easy set up. Great for leafy veggies like lettuce or celery. Cons: You can't grow root vegetables like carrots or potatoes that will rot in the water.

You can also use the growbed method. This method uses beds filled with clay beads, but you could use something else absorbent too. The water from the tank goes into the grow bed and flows back into the tank when the fish are done with it. Pros: Can grow almost any veggies. Cons: more difficult setup, but not by much.

Many people make these set ups out of large industrial plastic containers. You could use almost anything that holds water, and is large enough for the amount of fish you want to grow. Keep in mind that fish that are stocked too high could product too much waste, and you'll have a lot of die off. Once you get the hang of it, aquaponics is a great way to explode your ability to grow food. Your food cellar will thank you once you stock pile it with freshly canned vegetables and if your ability to store meat goes out the window you know you still have the power to provide for yourself. With a little instruction, I believe anybody can learn to do this. So, I'd like to recommend an aquaponics program to you. It's called Backyard Liberty, it's all about giving the power back to the people. The power to grow our own food, and be secure. This course is by preppers for preppers, and it will show you how to fight back, and take control of your food production again! Please do yourself a favor and check it out here if you'd like to take back your food.