What is Aquaponics?

Growing vegetables and fish together in a confined space

Aquaponics is putting fish to work. It just so happens that the work those fish do (eating and producing waste), is the perfect fertilizer for growing plants. Fish can grow a lot of plants when they get to work.

One of the coolest things about Aquaponics is that it mimics a natural ecosystem. Aquaponics represents the relationship between water, aquatic life, bacteria, nutrient dynamics, and plants that grow together in waterways all over the world.

Taking cues from nature, aquaponics harnesses the power of bio-integrating these individual components: Exchanging the waste by-product from the fish as a food for the bacteria, to be converted into a perfect fertilizer for the plants, to return the water in a clean and safe form to the fish. Just like mother nature does in every aquatic ecosystem.

Monoculture food production and excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides are harming our soils and biodiversity and threaten entire ecosystems.

Global food cultivation is responsible for about one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions — not including transportation. Meanwhile, 70% of the world’s drinking water is used for agriculture, despite half the world’s population facing serious water shortages for at least a month of the year.

Netherland-based Aquaponics company, Fhood Farm, believes that aquaponics can be an important part of the solution. For one, its food production system uses 90% less water than conventional farming.

In a greenhouse, water is only lost when it evaporates or is absorbed by the plants, explains Tim Elfring, a Phood Farm co-founder.

It’s a relatively simple process: After the seedlings are grown, the lettuces are placed with their roots on a floating Styrofoam plate and spend five to six weeks ripening before they are harvested.

In front of the plant, basins are two large pools in which 180 koi carp swim. Their excrement is pumped into a pool where natural bacteria from the air, soil, and water convert potentially toxic ammonia from the fish manure into nitrate — which plants need to grow.

As the plants feed on the nitrate, they also purify the water, which is pumped back clean into the fish pond.

Plants need little or no extra fertilizer to grow in an aquaponics system. “We have the fish, they deliver all the nutritional value,” said Tim Elfring, a Phood Farm co-founder.

Because the system is closed to the outside and extremely controlled, it also doesn’t need pesticides.

The yields are also significantly higher compared to conventional aquaculture, said Werner Kloas, a scientist at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB).

“If you have 2.6 gallons of water, you can usually produce 0.1 oz of fish in a closed recirculation system,” he said. “With a fully equipped aquaponics system, you can now get up to 3.5 oz of fish, and you can produce 1.1 lbs of tomatoes at the same time.”

Tomatoes, eggplants, lettuce, various herbs, and vegetables can be grown in this way. Theoretically, it would even be possible to plant grain and corn, but the infrastructure investment would be too high to make it economically viable. Perennial plants and fruits such as apples or oranges are not suitable.

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