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For once a post that’s not about AI on HN’s front page again. And the main comments are about liability risk?
Seriously, this is a cool project and I’m sure the person had a lot of fun which some people are apparently allergic to.
I love the idea of hydro/aquaponics and built a system as a student more than a decade ago. It’s a fun project. But as a form of agriculture it’s a spectacularly bad idea at home. This setup is about 1 square meter of NYC space, that’s about $18k. Meanwhile agricultural land goes for about $2/m2, or 9000x less. Then you spend $700 in parts to set up the 1 square meter, even if you put the system on cheap rural Kentuc…
Growing a bunch of potatoes in a barrel would be a lot more bang for your buck with that goal in mind. To really optimize costs and labor, though, as you say, you need a greenhouse and/or a big old field, just like always. There are no small-scale shortcuts. Not yet, anyway.
It makes me a bit sad that even with modern tech we haven't really made it much easier for people to produce their own food. But it's a reminder that our food production requires large scale collaboration and cooperation. Maybe that's a good thing.
For once a post that’s not about AI on HN’s front page again. And the main comments are about liability risk?
I love the idea of hydro/aquaponics and built a system as a student more than a decade ago. It’s a fun project. But as a form of agriculture it’s a spectacularly bad idea at home. This setup is about 1 square meter of NYC space, that’s about $18k. Meanwhile agricultural land goes for about $2/m2, or 9000x less. Then you spend $700 in parts to set up the 1 square meter, even if you put the system on cheap rural Kentuc…
By this logic, doing anything yourself is inefficient and a waste of time. However, I think that by reducing it purely to a monetary number, you are not measuring things correctly. Part of the output of doing DIY things is the knowledge, experience, and fun that comes from doing it. If you insist on putting a dollar sign on that, I’m sure it ends up being much more equal.
One one hand it's a fun DIY project for some people.
On the other hand, every other year somone rediscover vertical farming that makes no sense except for very niche products.
I love the idea of hydro/aquaponics and built a system as a student more than a decade ago. It’s a fun project. But as a form of agriculture it’s a spectacularly bad idea at home. This setup is about 1 square meter of NYC space, that’s about $18k. Meanwhile agricultural land goes for about $2/m2, or 9000x less. Then you spend $700 in parts to set up the 1 square meter, even if you put the system on cheap rural Kentuc…
Yep. I initially looked into it as a potential avenue for sustainably producing some of my own food, but the math absolutely did not make sense. Growing a bunch of potatoes in a barrel would be a lot more bang for your buck with that goal in mind. To really optimize costs and labor, though, as you say, you need a greenhouse and/or a big old field, just like always. There are no small-scale shortcuts. Not yet, anyway.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, this is a cool project and I’m sure the person had a lot of fun which some people are apparently allergic to.
It's just not very interesting as a whole. A quant and his programmer gf living in ny stack 3 fishtanks in a rack. It's questionable why it's even on here at all.
> in our one-bedroom NYC apartment ... Bigger tank = better If tank fails, you are liable for water damages and home insurance DOES NOT cover that. We were flodded by neighbours, the damage was $20.000 in cheap east europe commie block. Plus bigger tanks need structural support in floor (steel beams).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, this is a cool project and I’m sure the person had a lot of fun which some people are apparently allergic to.
It's just not very interesting as a whole. A quant and his programmer gf living in ny stack 3 fishtanks in a rack. It's questionable why it's even on here at all.
...also, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but why not "a programmer and her quant bf"? She's the one who wrote the article on her own blog, and this is primarily a community of programmers.
I love the idea of hydro/aquaponics and built a system as a student more than a decade ago. It’s a fun project. But as a form of agriculture it’s a spectacularly bad idea at home. This setup is about 1 square meter of NYC space, that’s about $18k. Meanwhile agricultural land goes for about $2/m2, or 9000x less. Then you spend $700 in parts to set up the 1 square meter, even if you put the system on cheap rural Kentuc…
Generally, yes you are right. Home farming (eg vegetable gardening) generally isn't economical. That doesn't mean it's not valuable. Besides being fun... I do think home gardening some resilience to the food system.
Aquaponics is, in general, not really a viable commercial method. Or rather, the plants are just a filter for the pinds...not a true secondary product.
Still... aquaponics is fun.
I love the idea of hydro/aquaponics and built a system as a student more than a decade ago. It’s a fun project. But as a form of agriculture it’s a spectacularly bad idea at home. This setup is about 1 square meter of NYC space, that’s about $18k. Meanwhile agricultural land goes for about $2/m2, or 9000x less. Then you spend $700 in parts to set up the 1 square meter, even if you put the system on cheap rural Kentuc…
Yep. I initially looked into it as a potential avenue for sustainably producing some of my own food, but the math absolutely did not make sense. Growing a bunch of potatoes in a barrel would be a lot more bang for your buck with that goal in mind. To really optimize costs and labor, though, as you say, you need a greenhouse and/or a big old field, just like always. There are no small-scale shortcuts. Not yet, anyway.…