This blog is about my experience in setting up and operating a commercial Aquaponics system at Freshry Farms. "Within three years starting October 2015 our goal is to produce 50 tonnes of fish per year and 50,000 plants, vegetables, shrubs and small trees in aquaponic growbeds"
What is Aquaponics
In very simple terms, Aquaponics is growing fish and plants together, its a combination of aquaculture (fish farming) with hydroponics (growing plants without soil)
Aquaponics allow for the growing of fish and plants symbiotically in recirculating, closed loop production system. The only input into the system is the water taken from the fish tank(s) along with the fish waste and excess leftover fish feed.
Water from the fish tank along with the waste are cycled through filters, the fist swirlfilter removes the solid waste from the water and the water passes through the second filter called biofilter where the 'nitrification' process happens and finally the nutrient rich water is fed into grow media where the plants are grown. Generally in most cases biofilter can also act as a media bed (grow media) where the water is flooded and drained on constant intervals allowing the bacteria to nitrify.
This blog is not to teach about the principles of aquaponics, "we are only interested in publishing and discussing about our experiences in building and operating a commercial scale aquaponics system". Please google (search the web ;') ) or look in youtube for more aquaponics related articles and videos
In very simple terms, Aquaponics is growing fish and plants together, its a combination of aquaculture (fish farming) with hydroponics (growing plants without soil)
In our understanding after operating the aquaponics for almost an year, if you are planning to do commercial aquaponics, please do consult with a aquaculture specialist, there are lot of other parameters to consider like, solid waste handling, dissolved oxygen, ammonia removal, etc
Initially our focus was on lot of organic vegetables and fruits productions, soon, we realized, its the other way. A simple math, we need 4-5 grown tomato plants for every 1KG of fish in the pond, that equates to 125,000 plants per 25 tonnes of tish. Building such huge grow beds are very very expensive and very time consuming, we want to get there eventually, in the mean time we had to build huge water clarifier, bio-filters, air blowers, etc to keep the quality of water and fish!
In our understanding after operating the aquaponics for almost an year, if you are planning to do commercial aquaponics, please do consult with a aquaculture specialist, there are lot of other parameters to consider like, solid waste handling, dissolved oxygen, ammonia removal, etc
Initially our focus was on lot of organic vegetables and fruits productions, soon, we realized, its the other way. A simple math, we need 4-5 grown tomato plants for every 1KG of fish in the pond, that equates to 125,000 plants per 25 tonnes of tish. Building such huge grow beds are very very expensive and very time consuming, we want to get there eventually, in the mean time we had to build huge water clarifier, bio-filters, air blowers, etc to keep the quality of water and fish!
great effort. let it turn out great ......
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