Small Farm Spotlight: the basics of aquaponics with Billy's Botanicals

Small Farm Spotlight: The Basics of Aquaponics with Billy’s Botanicals

by LeeAnna Tatum

Billy Dugger is not a typical farmer and Billy’s Botanicals is not a typical farm. Located in Richmond Hill is a small farm without a tractor, no row crops, no cows, not a barn in sight. No tilling, no adding of fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides, but this greenhouse-enclosed ecosystem generates a steady supply of greens, herbs and vegetables. Oh … and an edible by-product to boot!

Billy didn’t set out to become a farmer, atypical or otherwise, but did have a lifelong interest in aquariums and keeping fish. That hobby and his interest in foods produced without harmful chemicals eventually led him to the world of aquaponics.

When Billy’s father William Dugger II was diagnosed with cancer, he began to seriously consider the correlation between America’s industrialized agricultural system, the reliance on pesticides and other chemicals, and the increase in cancer rates.

“We’re not supposed to be eating pesticides,” Billy stated. “Pesticides were designed to kill or prevent organic creatures from eating that food, right? So, when we eat trace elements of that pesticide, to me, there’s a clear connection between that and all the rise in rates of cancer over the past 30, 40 years. It seems to be correlated with the agricultural world and when we started using all these pesticides. So if you can create food without using these inorganic elements and fertilizers and certainly no pesticides, your body will reward you with great health,” he concluded.

“Cancer runs strongly in my father’s side of the family,” Billy explained, “so it seemed like the only thing I could do was live proactively and live a healthy lifestyle and eat as much pesticide-free food as I could.”

Around that same time, Billy received an aquarium as a graduation gift. Not a fan of the filtration systems he was used to having to deal with in the saltwater aquariums he had kept as a child, he started researching other ways to filter. What he stumbled upon was aquaponics.

“Aquaponics is the merger of aquaculture (farmraising fish) and hydroponics to form a closed-loop recirculation system where all the nutrients plants thrive from derive from this interaction between freshwater fish and bacteria,” Billy explained.

He went on to describe the naturally occurring bacteria in the water commonly referred to as nitrifying bacteria of which there are two types.

“You colonize this bacteria and they work in conjunction with one another. The first one eats the dissolved fish waste in the form of ammonia and then excretes nitrites. The second beneficial bacteria actually eats those nitrites and excretes nitrates, which then the plants can use as fertilizer.”

“In this cycle,” he continued, “both ammonia and nitrites are toxic to fish and plants but that beneficial bacteria colony constantly eating the ammonia and nitrites and ultimately excreting the nitrates keeps a healthy environment for the fish and plants.”

The only thing that has to be added to this closed system is food for the fish and additional oxygen, much like one would need in a fish aquarium.

“It’s a living, breathing ecosystem, everything in here has a job to do. The fish provide the nutrients the beneficial bacteria need to thrive, the beneficial bacteria provide the nutrients that the plants need to survive, the plants filter the water for the fish. The only thing you really need to do to keep this thing going is pump a bunch of oxygen in the system to keep the fish alive. And when the roots are submerged under the water, you need a lot of oxygen to sustain the plants.”

Billy started out with just a couple of small fish tanks, but when he got serious about the idea of producing clean food he was able to take that concept and expand it to a much larger scale. He had some help with the process, getting an education on aquaponics from Friendly Aquaponics, the first aquaponics system in the world to receive organic certification.

That wasn’t the only education Billy received. He refers to much of his experience as an aquaponics farmer as an “educational endeavor”, but each challenge has been a lesson learned and a move toward a better system of growing.

Part of that education was moving from the initial setup of an outdoor system to the current greenhouse operation. Within the greenhouse environment, the regulated temperature of the water in the tanks acts as a natural insulator keeping the temperatures relatively moderated during the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

Billy’s Botanicals produces a regular supply of lettuce, bok choy, wasabi, mint, kale cucumbers and more. They also regularly produce an edible flower mix that includes: ginger lily, passion flower, chrysanthemum, pansies, cucumber flowers, begonias … depending on the time of year.

In addition to produce, a few times a year it becomes necessary to reduce the number of tilapia living in the tanks. Those fish are harvested and sold for meat.

As the fileting of the fish required Billy to have a USDA approved seafood processing facility which he was only using periodically, he reached out to local fishermen and shrimpers and uses that facility in order to bring fresh seafood to his customers as well.

“This (the seafood processing facility) opened the door for wild caught Georgia seafood,” Billy explained. “We started networking with fishermen and shrimpers and now we bring offshore fish and shrimp to the market and to certain restaurants as well. We network mainly with Philips Seafood down in Townsend. Our shrimper ... is Captain Johnny Woods off the Papa T shrimp boat.”

Nothing at Billy’s Botanicals goes to waste. It is a closed-loop system where, to put it simply, one organism’s waste is another’s treasure! Even the solid waste from the fish that is cleared from the system periodically does not go unused as it makes an excellent fertilizer for their more traditional outdoor garden. Likewise, the fish carcasses left after the filets are removed become a nutrient rich fertilizer that is sold or used on the farm.

The nutrient-rich, chemical-free food that is grown is as much an homage to Billy’s late father as the name of the farm itself. Billy’s Botanicals also serves as a tribute to his grandfather, and represents a healthier future for his son, William Dugger ... the fourth.

Billy Dugger, his wife Ana and their son Billy

Billy’s Botanicals currently provides produce to many Savannah restaurants including Prohibition and Husk on a weekly basis. You can purchase produce from Billy’s Botanicals, as well as a selection of fresh wild-caught Georgia seafood, at Forsyth Farmers Market on most Saturdays.