Long term self sustaining food and water plans?

[lasinvegas]

I got to tour a facility that had 4- 1500 gallon tanks set up with a 400 gallon table. The table was basically a 20ft long trough that had the water pump on one end and a matching tank behind it with the plants. They pumped from one end and the water came back in on the other so it kept a nice flow of nutrients going. The table had redclaw crayfish and had lettuce rafts over the full length. The 1500 gallon tanks were actually holes in the ground with pond liners. The whole set up was in a 30ftx20ft greenhouse.

They produced roughly 200lbs of crayfish, 2000lbs of tilapia and 2000lbs of yellow perch a year on the meat side. The production rates on the veggies were off the chart as well. I don't remember all of the numbers, but they were producing-
basil
peppers
tomatos
zuchini
lettuce
spinach
cabbage
and many more herbs and veggies I can't remember off the top of my head.

They were producing on a scale that was making money to cover the operation selling to local restaurants. In my mind not too bad for an operation housed in 600 sqft. They chose the inground route because it was cheaper to keep the water heated in the winter and it in turn kept the greenhouse heated.

[Irving]

Wow, those are great numbers. The news piece on NPR was talking about restaurants haven't their own set-ups exactly like that, so that the customers could always know exactly what kind of fish they were getting and where it came from.

[lasinvegas]

I have been working on designing a smaller furniture quality set up that I can market that will use a regular display tank like most people have and grow kitchen herbs or small veggies in the kitchen or living room. No reason you can't use goldfish or cichlids to grow kitchen herbs for your own kitchen.

I would even recommend a smaller design like this as a cheap way to get your feet wet.

[Irving]

That's funny, because I have a fish tank and an aerogarden. Might as well just connect them and have less maintenance for them both.