Aquaponics: Self Reliance In A Barrel - #Killerpix #40

I had to go dig up an old photo for this, a picture from our very first aquaponics system. The theme for this week's #Killerpix Photo Contest by @killerwhale is "fishing" and it seemed like a great excuse to talk about aquaponics.

This photo was taken in November of 2011 on the front porch of our house in Horseshoe Bend, Idaho with the trusty old Fuji FinePix S8300. It was a new camera in those days...

I realize a lot of people like to put bait on a hook and go stand by the river or lake and spend the day trying to catch fish. That is a wonderful thing for a hobby or sport, but we were interested in feeding masses of people. We had a "prepper" attitude of wanting to secure a food supply for our neighborhood. We live in rural Idaho, one bridge goes out and it could be a while before the store gets supplies again, one major disaster and it gets real ugly, real fast. When we learned about aquaponics, we realized this had the potential to end world hunger. We set up a system, we stocked it with tilapia. Want to "go fishing?" Grab a net...

Truth be told, we never ate those fish. We moved the system up here and kept it going all summer while we tried to get infrastructure put in. Thanks to an epic runaround by the power company, the fish got too cold and died before we could get a heater plugged in for them. Someday we will set up another system but not until we have ALL the infrastructure in place. If you are interested in a steady supply of fish that you KNOW have not been swimming in toxins, I encourage you to learn about aquaponics. If you are a prepper and doing keto, this is nearly total self-reliance. I will add a video fishy and I made when we set up our second system, and yes, this is a big part of why she is "fishyculture."