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The
Aquaponics Guidebook VOLUME 1 2nd EDITION
“The ultimate inspiration for anyone interested by the idea of producing vegetables and raising fish on a micro-scale
Access to Personal Agriculture
“Somewhere between a multiversity textbook and DIY magic carpet” Sequatchie Valley Institute
and in a sustainable way”
“Hours of reading and learning are guaranteed!”
The Ecologist Magazine, London
Aquaponics Europe
Aquaponics is proven worldwide as the most efficient and sustainable way to grow food, on any scale. Now, you can do it, starting today. Bevan Suits
Contents Click to advance to selected page.
Dedication About This Book Good Reasons for Aquaponics Aquaponics Gallery Introducing Aquaponics
1
Aquaponics Models Nitrogen Cycle A Basic Drip System The Ebb & Flow System The Hydroponic Raft System The UVI System
5 6 7 8 9 10
Equipment / Media Container Gallery Pump DO = Aeration Heater Plumbing Lights Water, Testing for Quality Roots, Grow Media Bacteria Rule Growing Fish An Affinity for Fish Choosing Tilapia Other Species Tilapia Wellness Food, Growth A Home-built System Getting Started System Start-up System Balance
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Personal Agribusiness Plant Farming Thinking Production Planning, Education, Finance Grow Sell Eat Local
32 33 34 35 36
Scaling Up Sheltering the System Outside the Box Technology, Community
37 38 39 40
Culturing the System
41
Resources Interactive, North America Interactive, Australia, Africa Research Links
45 46 47 48
The Last Page
49
Picture Credits
50
Aquaponics Gallery
Click on images to visit websites.
Aquaponics is growing fish and plants in one system, with fish waste feeding the plants. It works in many variations of scale and form, though the basic concept does not change: Fish, bacteria and plants working together in a recirculating, soil-less system. It resembles a living organism, with a heart (the pump) and lungs (aeration). The bacteria remove waste like the kidneys and the liver. It will teach you a lot about food and this ecosystem we call home. Build a small system. Then you will want to build a larger one., because it’s simple and it works.
Growing Power, Milwaukee
Growing Power, Milwaukee
FAST, South Carolina
Red Heeler, Australia
FAST, South Carolina
FAST, Kenya
Sustainable Design Group, Atlanta
University of the Virgin Islands
Nelson & Pade, Montello, WI
Murray Hallam, Queensland, Australia
Introducing
Aquaponics The Aquaponics Guidebook
R
eplace an aquarium filter with a pot of gravel. Put a plant in the pot. Let it drain back into the aquarium. That’s aquaponics, boiled down to its simplest form.
Contents
Now, consider it on a bigger scale: An above-ground swimming pool with 3000 gallons of water. 4-foot wide grow bed trenches and lined with rubber, stretching 100 feet. Out of this system a staggering amount of vegetables and fish protein can be produced, to be consumed, traded or sold. Inputs are fish food, electricity and a modest amount of maintenance. Or how about this: Water from a fish pond is pumped up hill and filtered down through gravel grow beds. The clean water trickles back into the pond. Nothing is wasted. The excess nutrients provide a valuable crop. Aquaponics is simple and it works. It’s also curious that it hasn’t caught on in a bigger way, for all the clear and immediate benefits it provides.
Consider the Benefits: Aquaponics is a highly efficient organic food growing system that produces a complete diet and requires no expensive or complex equipment.
•
With a clear understanding of how the components fit together, you can start putting a system together quickly.
•
It begins to deliver produce in just a few short weeks.
•
Only a modest amount of fresh water is needed, as the water for the plants is continuously circulated. Only water lost to evaporation is replaced.
•
You can provide your own fish food supply in the form of worms, insects and aquatic duckweed (for tilapia).
•
Tilapia are the preferred aquaculture species worldwide. They taste great, grow fast, are very hardy and tolerate crowding. They grow from tiny fingerlings to one-pounders in about 8 months. A 500 gallon tank can produce 250 pounds of live fish, which go for about $5 per pound, retail.
•
Greens such as basil and lettuce will grow from seedlings to harvest in about 6 weeks. In a southern, 6 month growing season, that’s about 4 easy harvests. Basil wholesales for about $10 per pound.
•
If you add a greenhouse or other indoor growing environment with supplemental grow lights, you can grow year-round.
Personal agriculture is very important for shaping our future economy and environment. We used to have an economy based on food production.
1
A
Basic Drip System The Aquaponics Guidebook
Each component of an aquaponic system can be grouped as a:
• Container • Connector • Medium • Organism • Nutrient This system is basic drip irrigation, with 1/8” holes drilled into the tube. . A mesh pump bag will help prevent clogging. Alternately you can add emitters, which are valves on a stick, that bring the water to each plant.
Contents
Fish Tank, Grow Bed Tubing, Valves, Pumps, Filters, Bulkheads
You could add Heat and Light as ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS and Electricity as POWER SOURCE.
Water, Gravel (for plants & bacteria) People, Plants, Fish, Bacteria Fish Food, Fish Waste, Nitrogen, Oxygen, CO2
ORGANISM
CONNECTOR
Tubing
Plant
ORGANISM
You
ORGANISM Bacteria
NUTRIENT Fish Food
CONTAINER Grow tray
MEDIUM Gravel
PUMP CONNECTOR Valve & Bulkhead
MEDIUM Water
NUTRIENT Air
ORGANISM Fish
NUTRIENT Waste
CONTAINER Fish Tank
CONNECTOR Pump
7
Pump The Aquaponics Guidebook
The Heart of Your System
Contents
Aquaponics relies on a pump. If the pump fails, the fish could die quickly, so plan to have a battery-powered backup aerator at all times (shown on page 14). The aerator will help to oxidize the ammonia until the power returns. The need for this increases as your system grows. You need to move a certain amount of water through your tank each hour. Pumps are measured according to their GPH (Gallons per Hour) or GPM (Gallons per Minute). The pressure they produce at certain height above the pump is the “head”. The higher the water is pumped, the lower the pressure. Head pressure is measured in PSI (Pounds per Square Inch). Pump types include submersible, (at the bottom of the tank), or in-line which sits outside the tank, the water line coming in and going out.
Water Pump Performance Curves With the outlet at 12 feet, this pump can move 0 gallons of water per hour. 12 feet is the limit of this pump.
A pump performace chart tells you how much water you can pump to what height. This chart compares three different pumps. The height of the outlet is called ‘head’.
A submersible pump sits on the bottom of your tank. The screen prevents small fish from getting stuck to the inlet and dying.
An in-line pump connects to the tubing between the fish tank and the grow bed. It is more powerful but costs more money.
12’ 11’
With the outlet at 10 feet, this pump will move about 600 gallons of water per hour.
10’
TOTAL HEAD
9’ 8’ 7’ 6’ 5’ 4’
With the outlet at the same level as the pump (a total head of 0), this pump will move about 1350 gallons per hour.
3’ 2’ 1’ 0
200
400
600
800
1000
GALLONS PER HOUR (GPH)
1200
1400
13
Roots
Grow Media The Aquaponics Guidebook
A good mix of grow media allows nitrification to take place, where the ammonia from fish waste is converted by bacteria into useful nitrogen.
Contents
Permatil by Stalite is expanded slate. It is used as a soil additive for gardens but is an excellent grow medium for aquaponics because of its light weight, high surface area and relatively low cost. Mix it 50/50 with low-cost pea gravel. Expanded clay, such as Hydroton, Viastone and other brands, are used in soilless systems for their ability to hold roots and provide a good home for bacteria. The pebbles are porous and light. They allow plenty of water, air and nutrients to reach the roots. A large bag costs about $35, so it is most cost-effective when mixed with less expensive gravel.
Actual Size
Actual Size
Actual Size
Kaldnes, from Norway, is designed for wastewater treatment as an ideal environment for bacteria. It is an excellent biomedia for your biofilter. Though somewhat expensive, it provides maximum surface area for microbial growth while still allowing space for air and water to flow. At the same time, bacteria is protected from abrasive action as the plastic pieces are circulated in water.
Extending from roots are root hairs. This microenvironment is where everything comes together, the biochemical soup converting into plant flesh. The roots benefit from the large amount of air and nutrients that flow through a soilless system. This enables greens such as basil and lettuce grow from seedling to harvest in as little as 4 weeks. If you use municipal water in your system, remember that it contains chlorine that kills beneficial bacteria..
In theory, just about any clean, inert and loose material can be a grow media. Shredded tires and packing peanuts are being studied.
19
An Affinity for
Fish The Aquaponics Guidebook
Fish as Livestock
Contents
O
ne hundred years ago, growing food was part of our culture. Now you can help bring it back with an aquaponics system. The fish of choice is tilapia.
Aquaponics is eco-technology on a backyard scale, a living, breathing machine with its own heart, lungs, kidneys and liver. It begins and ends with the fish. The fish of choice is tilapia. Learning to raise fish for food is one of the most sustainable or “green” things we can do, beyond buying a hybrid vehicle, because it represents a cultural shift in the right direction, back to self-reliance and productivity. Grow system technologies also bring communities together. The abundance of food produced will help open doors in neighborhoods. A garden may have admirers, but a growing system will draw a crowd. A fish harvest festival may be the best reward of all. Once you decide to create a small aquaponics system of 100 fish or less, you can go online and discover vast amounts of information: Hobbyists, breeders, researchers, recipes, equipment dealers, economic statistics, etc. This is because farmed fish, especially tilapia, are a driving force of the world’s food economy. They are easy to raise, grow fast and taste great. You can do it.
“Hunger caused by climate change may be the defining human tragedy of this century.” - OXFAM June 2009
There is both art and science to raising fish. The art is in the intuitive nurturing that we know as gardeners, pet owners and parents. There is a lot of creative freedom in putting your system together and making it fit your space, conducting experiments out of curiosity. The fish are beautiful to watch. Seeing plants grow so quickly is encouraging. Hearing the splash of flowing water is relaxing. This is technology that feels right, a model of an ecosystem. The science is in observing, measuring and controlling the many variables that keep your system in balance. The good news is that in starting small, the critical numbers are fewer and easier to manage. Once you have the feel and experience of a working system, scaling up becomes more feasible. Before long your system will be in balance and thriving. Young fish need several feedings per day, so you many need an automated fish feeder. As the fish grow, you will want to divide the fish tank or add extra tanks for different sized fish to separate the larger ones, giving the smaller stock a chance to grow. Your fish will start to grow quickly and you’ll be planning what to do with them and looking ahead to starting a new batch, learning to stagger their production. Your success will give you confidence. After you grow succesfully with aquaponics, you may feel like an expert, but it’s
22
System Balance The Aquaponics Guidebook
Understanding Key Ratios Helps You to Troubleshoot
Contents
BALANCE
A Balanced System
Here you have many fish producing a good amount of ammonia. The biomedia in filter and grow bed is adequate to convert it to nitrates. There are enough plants to absorb all the nitrates. Water returns clean to the fish tank. Enough biomedia Enough fish Enough plants
Not Enough Biomedia / Grow Media
Here is the same amount of fish with a small amount of biomedia to convert ammonia to nitrates. The water is mostly unfiltered, so too much ammonia returns to the tank. Solution: Add a biofilter or more grow media so the bacteria can do its work. Remember that it takes time for bacteria culture to develop on new media.
Not Enough Plants
LESS MEDIA / MANY FISH
Too little media Per volume of fish... Too much ammonia returns to fish
FEW PLANTS / MANY FISH
The same amount of fish with adequte biomedia but too few plants to take up the nitrates. Too much nitrate returns to the fish tank. Not dangerous but unhealthy. Solution: Add more plants to soak up the extra nitrates.
Not Enough Fish or Too Much Water
Too few plants Per volume of fish... Too much nitrate returns to fish
FEW FISH / MANY PLANTS
A small amount of fish, or too much water, with enough biomedia and enough plants. There is not enough ammonia being produced for the plants to grow well. Solution: Add more fish or grow fewer plants.
Not enough ammonia to nourish plants
31
Thinking
Production
Your Produce Has a Dollar Value
What if you could make steady income with aquaponics and even finance your equipment?
The Aquaponics Guidebook Contents
We have been a consumer culture for so long that most of us have forgotten that growing is a business. If you can deliver a steady volume of quality produce, you can count on selling it, which greatly affects how to think about aquaponics. On page 10 you can see a spreadsheet for a large-scale operation that brought in a lot of money from a few thousand square feet of growing space. Even if you only have a fraction of that space, you should know what sells, at what price, and at what time of year. Eggplant, for example, wholesales in some markets today for around $18 per bushel. The price is higher in cold months. In the spreadsheet below you can see that a 10’ x 10’ basil bed has the potential to generate up to $1500 per month, at $10 per pound and ideal growing conditions. Pro Forma Basil Revenue Crop
Pounds per Square Foot
Grow Period
Typical Wholesale Price per Pound
Net Revenue per 100 Square Ft
Basil
1 - 1.5
4 - 6 weeks
$10
$1000 - $1500
Source: Growing Edge Magazine
Of course if everyone is growing basil the price starts to drop and you have to find another crop, which is simple agricultural economics. Hobby gardeners tend to forget this because we are conditioned to think of a single five-month growing period, a harvest in September, with dozens of tomatoes and squash eaten, given away or left to rot. With aquaponics you gain so much efficiency over traditional gardening that someone with even a modest amount of growing space can become a reliable supplier to wholesalers, restaurants, groceries and co-ops. There may also be emerging crop markets for (legal) medicinal herbs for Asian communities and other groups. There are likely other valuable markets remaining to be discovered or even created. Who will get there first and cash in?
Growing Edge Magazine, Basil Stats
Local Harvest Network
How to Do It You don’t need an MBA to become an aquaponics business person. Just find out who wants what, how much they want and what they are willing to pay. You can do it like a CSA (Consumer Supported Agriculture), recruiting families to subscribe. Or you can talk to owners of high-end restaurants and restaurant chains, grocery stores and wholesale distributors. Make some calls, promote yourself. Being the first one in is very important.
The Word on Organic
USDA Organic 1
The USDA jury is still out on organic certification for hydroponics/aquaponics. If you feed your fish certified organic fish food, duckweed, earthworms, without any antibiotics or hormones, it may be technically organic but you can’t sell it as such until you get the stamp. The links on the right provide more in-depth information. A decision is likely in November of 2009.
USDA Organic 2
34
Interactive Tour Page
North America The Aquaponics Guidebook Contents
This PDF edition features hyperlinks. By clicking the names, the websites of these featured aquaponics specialists will open in your browser.
Floating Gardens
Crop Diversification Nelson & Pade Vancouver Island U
Kirby Peak
Growing Power
Ocean Arks
Flying Fish
Freshwater Institute
Portable Farms
FAST
Grow Foods
Morning Star Fishermen
S&S Aqua Farm
UVI
Acuaponia
Auburn ALEARN
Friendly Aquaponics
42
Research
Links The Aquaponics Guidebook
USDA Defines Sustainable Agriculture
Contents
Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Alternative Farming Systems Information Center Cooperative State Research, Education & Extension Service Western Sustainable Agriculture Sustainable Urban Gardens Denver Urban Gardens Milwaukee Urban Gardens Philadelphia Urban Gardens Urban Habitat Chicago Urban Gardens Los Angeles Seattle Tilth Atlanta’s Farmer D Just Food in New York City Urban Gardens DC Growing Edge Magazine Farmer John’s CSA, Angelic Organics Urban Garden Magazine Food Inc, The Movie ALEARN, Auburn University Aquaculture Extension American Tilapia Association The Fish Site, Aquaculture Stats on Tilapia Mississippi State, Stats on Tilapia Whole Foods Corporate Values Slow Food Movement Local Harvest Network Food Routes, Knowing Where Food Comes From National Family Farm Coalition 44