Hydroponics vs Aquaponics vs Non-recycling Water System : The Best DIY on growing Vegetables & Fruits

During Movement Control Order (MCO) Period, we wish to start some DIY to plant our own vegetables and fruit. We searched for some videos and came across Hydroponics. I have a group of whatsApp farmer friends who include some amateur farmers who work as pharmacists or chemists. These are the short conversation worth sharing:

Me : Have you tried any of these Hydroponics ? Would like to hear what you say about these... 💫✨🌱

AK : Hydroponics works, no doubt, because plants need both macro and micro nutrients found naturally in soil, so soil is immaterial to grow plants.

My question and concern rather is if hydroponics is sustainable?

PYH : Not sustainable at all. It is not wholesome either. mostly hydroponic inside the greenhouse. easy to commercialize and produce. The harvest will feed our body with high nitrite content and end up cancer cells emerging in our body.

Mo :How about aquaponic which combine hydroponic with fish culture?

PYH : excretion from fish will cause microbial contamination that leads to food quality. This is a totally failed concept.

Mo : ohh. But it is claimed to be an organic and environmentally friendly way of farming. Then it must be misleading

HB : 

Yes, biological load on the system is unsustainable - clogged pipes, imbalance fish excremental load when harvested large fishes replaced with small fishes etc. System overnight collapses due to this. High investment costs and high failure rate.

A better system is the non recycling water type : fish ponds feeding wastewater to water fruits trees and vegetables soil plots; water for fishes are freshly pumped/ gravity fed  into ponds from existing running streams. This system is good .

I Saw this on one of the farms in Mantin, Malaysia ...

All the fruit trees and vegetables are organic grown on the ground, not artificial media, and allows the trees and vegetables root system to naturally find other nutrients as needed. This is a much healthier system than recycled water aquaponics and veg on artificial non nutrient media.

CH :

Well eating vegetables from hydroponic cultures causes cancer. This is a unproven claim

And by doing this, of course you have high investment cost, but saving a lot of water, thus another type of farming which is more effective and more clean.

I don't see any problem with the green house. We close the eviroment to protect the plants. Just like building a house for a plant. No one dispute if living in a house will make the person weak, because the person become not strong enough to flight against nature.

Instead, the plants do not have stress living in a green house so it can produce a lot of fruits and vegetables. We need to of course take care of the plant nutrition. Thus the only concern is how is the nutrition produced.

If the nutrition is produced in a good natural way, for example from fish then it would be great. Yet holding a lot of fish in big tank is also karmically not perfect

However, using a non recycled system, it is only suitable for places with strong environmental advantages, such as tropical countries, places with huge water resource. The strength of the western countries is technology.

Last month i went to Almeria in Spain to see the green house city of Europe. They all grow plants in green house and become the main vegestables producer of Europe. They also solve the water problem by recycling the water and use hydroponic.

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Here I have collected some interesting links :
1. How Does Hydroponics Work? – Infographics

https://skunkology.com/how-does-hydroponics-work-infographics/

2. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AQUAPONICS AND HYDROPONICS

https://greenplur.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/the-difference-between-aquaponics-and-hydroponics/

3. The first vertical farm showdown: Why you need to know what’s happening in Singapore

https://urbanverticalproject.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/the-first-vertical-farm-showdown-why-you-need-to-know-whats-happening-in-singapore/2/

4. Large Vegetable Garden Design

https://www.backyardgardenlover.com/large-vegetable-garden-design/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes&utm_term=552413860_20294698_400838

5. 20 Incredible Ideas for DIY Hydroponic Garden

https://rexgarden.com/diy-hydroponic-garden/

Here are some youtube videos that might be interesting to watch:

1. 

How To Build DIY Aquaponics System For Beginners For Backyard 2021

2.

【种植30】10种不用种子就能种的菜，超市买来的菜直接种，没有根也能种，快速，趣味种菜 | 10 vegetables don't need to grow from seeds

3. 

10种多年生的蔬菜, 只需种一次, 每年都有采收, 非常好打理的蔬菜，Top 10 Perennial Vegetables