I seem to remember a discussion about that on the game forums in a prior version. The bottom line was that it was intended to be inefficient because of the massive boon you gain from a no-risk source of protein.

Although that may just be dementia setting in, so I'd defer to the author.

@Othobrithol: you have a good memory! :-)
I also re-stated this in the comments (16 september, currently in page 3).

I'm still going to put my two cents and point out once more that chickens already exist as the vanilla gold standard of no-risk protein and are so much more efficient than aquaponics that there's no reasonable comparison. Even comparing aquaponics to hydroponics as a low-risk source of food in general: aquaponics basins consume large amounts of vegetable matter and with fungus infestations they're even more prone to failure than hydroponics. Which is especially bad considering that with hydroponics you can buffer yourself against disaster by only using quick-growing crops. Mashgon is supposedly a quick-breeding fish but after dozens of hours of using this mod I've still never seen a single one that didn't fall out of a cargo pod. Now, if it was possible to use aquaponics in absence of other fishing sources, they might be more attractive, but considering they need live fish as starters - and you're going to need to replace them frequently due to RNG events you can't protect yourself against - you're never going to use the basins unless you already have reliable fishing anyway. This makes them an even more questionable application of time and resources considering how productive normal fishing is once you've hurdled the barrier of leveling up a a skilled fisherman. I just can't see using the basins in their current state unless you just think they look cool (which they really do).

@Omega13: sorry for late answer, I did not saw your message.
You easily adapt this mod balance to your taste by modifying XML values.
Just look for catchQuantity, breedQuantity or breedingDurationInDays in Items_Fishes.xml file.

How much meat do you guys need? I found two basins are fine to supply some meat for fine meals to feed 8 or so people. Maybe supplemented now and then with other sources.

Not being able to buy the fish you need to seed the basins from traders is an issue though

still being able to grow meat is helpful if malnurtion sets in

@SteveS
i get 48 food of fish from 1 basin per 3-4 days.
simple meal require 40 units of meat. 2-3 meal for 1 person per day.
even if u make fine meals with 20 meat's, how u supplied 8 persons from 2 basin's?

500W of almost 2 unit of fresh fish for few days? it is ridiculous. or may be i did something wrong?

SteveS was talking about a previous version where basins were much more productive.

so now basin's is a waste of time, energy and resources :(

But a quite reliable source of meat! ;-) Remember the last time your hunter was stampeded?

actually, when u have colony of 20+ persons, there is no sense to build basin. even 10 basins...

i think aquaponics would be good during winter coz you can enclose it and still have fish (aside from the hundreds of chickens you already have. animals also tend to leave during the winter, so chickens + fish is good to supply meat.

my problem though is that aquaponics seem to have compatibility issues with other mods like hospitality, prison enhanced, extended stacking.

i keep getting NaN when my fishermen try to put the fillet in to make fish eggs.

If possible, I'd say the aquaponics need a small buff. They may be "safe" sources but they just don't produce enough for their upkeep costs and chance to completely restart the process as a result of infection. I think a better risk/reward would be something similar to hydroponics where the plants rapidly die without electricity, something similar for aquaponics while increasing the amount of meat gained would be better. Otherwise I feel like my investment in aquaponics is a waste since I cannot sustain my colony off of them as a meat source within the time it takes to rebread the fish.

Either that or faster breading times would be much appreciated. It just doesn't feel realistic with how long it takes and how risky the process is given how little the reward is. Even if it is a bit safer for pawns physically than hunting, the risk of malnutrition or starvation and the very low yield aren't worth it by comparison.

Maybe add in mod options to change how aquaponics work if you can? That way people who want to change their efficiency or other factors but don't know how to edit the mod files directly can do so.

Other than that, this mod is fantastic and gives that much more reason for starting a colony on a river or by the coast. I also really like the diversity of obtainable seafood and that they all actually differ in availability and materials yielded. Nice work with this mod. d(^ ^ )

Thanks for the feedback! I will keep the modoption in mind for A18 update.

the "breading" of the fish makes them delicious when fried.