With its flexibility, aquaponics is definitely one of the most sustainable processes to grow food such as fish and vegetables. It’s uncomplicated and fairly easy to set up the system if you know how aquaponics works.
Basically, it uses the waste from the fish tank to feed the plants, while the plants keep the water clean for the fish. The plants are the ones responsible to make the water oxygenated. Every component of the aquaponics system is usable, and practically nothing is wasted. Even the unconsumed fish feed from the tank can be used by plants as a fundamental source of nutrients and minerals.
Why should you invest your time in creating your own aquaponics system?
There is already an existing aquaculture setup that allows you to breed and grow freshwater fish. So why would you want to invest your time and money in a hybrid method? In order to understand better why aquaponics is more efficient, let’s take a closer look at how the traditional aquaculture setup works.
The traditional aquaculture setup requires you to take out at least 10% of the water in the system. This is necessary to impede the buildup of ammonia and nitrates, because they can make the water toxic for the fish. So logically, if you have more fish, the amount of ammonia and nitrates is going to be higher.
So let’s say you have a closed aquaculture system that has 3000 liters of water. In order to prevent the buildup of toxins in the water, you need to remove and replace 300 liters of water every single day. As you can imagine, this is not only hard to do, but it’s also expensive.
If you replace 300 liters of water every day, that would be 2100 liters in a week. The water bill can surely add up very quickly. You can’t avoid this process either, because it is necessary if you want to keep the entire system running, and if you want the fish to be alive and well.
If you want to save water and your money, it would be nearly impossible to recycle 300 liters of water every day. Even if you have an enormous vegetable or fruit garden, this amount of water is definitely excessive. That’s the reason why aquaponics is more efficient compared to the conventional aquaculture setup. You don’t have to replace a certain amount of water each day as the plants will do the job of keeping the water clean.
Before even planning and buying the tools you need to set up your own aquaponics, you need to consider your individual needs first. These are some of the questions you can ask:
- What is your main goal in establishing your own aquaponics system?
- Are you simply going to use the produce for yourself or your family?
- Or are you going to sell some of them too?
- Do you want produce both fish and vegetables?
- Do you have the time and manpower to maintain a large or small system?
Once you are completely sure of the reasons why you want to build your own closed-tank system, you can start planning your own aquaponics system. A small system is ideal if you want something that can easily be maintained by one or two persons. Ideally, the tank should have at least 3000 liters of water. The system is mainly composed of two parts: the grow beds and the fish tank.
Ideally, the fish tanks should always be lower than the grow beds. As the name suggests, the grow beds are platforms where the plants are placed. So this means that the water can easily drain the water from the grow beds to the fish tanks. A water pump regularly circulates a fixed amount of water so the plants in the grow beds can clean up the water before it is drained back into the fish tank.
In the long run, you also need to take care of the fingerlings. This is important if you are truly serious about the success of your aquaponics system. The fingerlings can be contained in a small drain tank until the critters are ready to be moved to the larger fish holding tank. It is very crucial that there should be constant regular water movement within the system. This ensures that the water stays clean and free of toxins.
Now, the question is how often should the water be distributed in the system? Generally, the grow beds should receive a certain amount of water hourly or at least once every other hour. With the help of gravity, the water naturally drains back to the holding tank, thus completing the whole process.
To understand more on how aquaponics work, you can click here.
