Small-scale Aquaponics Food Production
Aquaponics? What’s that?
Free Resource for Aquaponics
In February 2020, I lost my job. I was subcontracting as a Field Service Representative for the leading French regional aircraft manufacturer. It was a great job, paid well. And then the pandemic happened.
The coronavirus pandemic virtually closed down the entire aviation industry. No aircraft sales meant no work for Field Service Service Representatives whose work was to provide technical support to new aircraft customers, on-site and help them introduce the new aircraft into their fleets.
I first came across the concept of aquaponics in 2018 and while I was working in Malaysia, I built a small aquaponics system which I put in the entrance to my apartment. It was a barrel aquaponics system made from a single 220l barrel cut into two, with the lower part housing the 4 or 5 tilapia fish and the upturned top part holding the growing medium, plants and a bell siphon. Placing a small water pump in the fish tank and pumping water up to the growing bed and voila! I had an aquaponics system.
Exactly what is Aquaponics?
Aquaponics is a method of growing fish and plants together in an ecosystem that mimics nature.
Aquaponics is combination of hydroponics — growing plants without using soil and aquaculture — fish farming.
To explain the illustration above:
You have fish in a fish tank.
The waste water from the fish tank which contains both solid fish waste and dissolved fish waste (ammonia in the water) is used to water the plants. The growing medium contains bacteria which break down the fish waste converting it into nutrients for the plants.
The grow-bed housing the plants is essentially a bio-filter that filters out all the fish waste and clean water is collected in a sump under the grow-bed. The clean water is then pumped back to the fish tank to keep the fish happy.
So, in 2020 I finally had plenty of time on my hands and I was in one place long enough to build a larger aquaponics system. One with a 1000l fish tank that could hold up to 100 tilapia fish.
To build this, I used a wonderful resource from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN. It’s a comprehensive 288 page PDF document detailing the theory behind aquaponics and also provides detailed step-by-step instructions on how to build each of the 3 main types of aquaponics systems which are:
- Media bed
- Nutrient film technique and
- Deep water culture
I built the media bed aquaponics system in my brother-in-law’s front garden in Indonesia, using the FAO’s Small-scale Aquaponics Food Production PDF. You can download the PDF here for free.
Enjoy!
Next steps… Going big — Commercial Aquaponics courtesy of the godfather of modern aquaponics — Dr. James Rakocy author of “Recirculating Aquaculture Tank Production Systems: Aquaponics — Integrating Fish and Plant Culture”
