I've attended a class with Eric Mandu as part of Workshop Weekend a year ago. He's awesome.
For the semi-amateur, aquaponics is actually pretty tough to start up. Of course you need your initial equipment investment, but mostly getting a stable system is finicky and takes time. The longest part is getting your "live rock" fully active, i.e. nitriting and nitrating bacteria in the stones that convert the fish waste into stuff the plants can use. You essentially have a metastable system that takes a lot of supervision and some chemicals to setup, kinda like keeping a swimming pool clean, except you want just the right ratio of bacteria.
Furthermore, at his scales you can't monetize the fish. A possible choice of fish would be Tilapia, but at those scales it isn't worth it, but more importantly you can't cultivate those without a special license: IIRC they're considered invasive species in California. Maintaining such a license requires way more investment than what's possible at his level.
Anyhow, aquaponics are pretty awesome, but aren't yet economically viable compared to standard agriculture in most places* and there are legislative and economic issues that make it tough to kickstart. I hope Eric's work increases awareness and carves a path.
AceJohnny2: thank you. Figuring out how to build standardized aquaponics systems that are self-stabilizing (e.g. by using inexpensive sensors and Raspberry-like computers to monitor and regulate all elements), and finding cost-effective ways to deal with the regulatory issues you mention, are the kinds of challenges that ambitious entrepreneurs must overcome to be successful.
The question I would ask at this early stage is really about the odds of finding product-market fit: if a startup can figure out how to make a standard, modular, legal, self-stabilizing aquaponics unit that is easy to install and maintain, is there a sizeable market for it? I suspect the answer is yes.
For the semi-amateur, aquaponics is actually pretty tough to start up. Of course you need your initial equipment investment, but mostly getting a stable system is finicky and takes time. The longest part is getting your "live rock" fully active, i.e. nitriting and nitrating bacteria in the stones that convert the fish waste into stuff the plants can use. You essentially have a metastable system that takes a lot of supervision and some chemicals to setup, kinda like keeping a swimming pool clean, except you want just the right ratio of bacteria.
Furthermore, at his scales you can't monetize the fish. A possible choice of fish would be Tilapia, but at those scales it isn't worth it, but more importantly you can't cultivate those without a special license: IIRC they're considered invasive species in California. Maintaining such a license requires way more investment than what's possible at his level.
Anyhow, aquaponics are pretty awesome, but aren't yet economically viable compared to standard agriculture in most places* and there are legislative and economic issues that make it tough to kickstart. I hope Eric's work increases awareness and carves a path.
*I wonder about McMurdo and the ISS... :)