Aquaponics approach

Aquaponics approach

What is aquaponics? A simple answer is included aquaculture and hydroponics. It is a closed cycle.

What are benefits of aquaponics? There are so many but we can show in shortly: nutrient management, plants grows fast twice, year ground production possible, prolonged individual plant life, less water consumption about 90%, soil pathogens eliminated, plants can be grown at desired height, no weeding. 

What happens if we use aquaponics? The big problems are the environment. We need control light, temperature, humidity/ evaporation, air flow.

There are some guidelines for aquaponic producers.

1.Use a feeding ration for design calculations: 

-The optimum feeding rate ratio depends on many factors such as type of hydroponic system, plants being cultivated, chemical composition of source water and percentage of system water lost during solids removal.

-The optimum feeding rate ratio for a nutrient film technology hydroponic system is roughly 25% of the ratio used for a raft system.

-Ratio between fish and plants is based on the feeding rate ratio( amount of feed fed to the fish daily per square meter of plant growing area). For example, if the fish are being fed 1000 g per day on average, the area devoted to hydroponics production should be 16.7 m2 for a feeding rate ratio of 60g/m2/day.

2.Keep feed input relatively constant.
3.Supplement with calcium, potassium, and iron. Plants require 13 nutrients for growth, and fish feed supplies 10 nutrients in adequate quantities. Iron-Chelated Iron(EDTA). Calcium, Agricultural Limestone( Calcium Carbonate CaCO3), Hydrated Lime( Calcium Hydroxide- Ca(OH)2 ), Calcium Chloride( CaCl2 ). Potassium, muriate of potash( potassium chloride KCl) or Potassium Hydroxide(KOH)

4.Ensure good aeration. The fish, plants and bacteria in aquaponic systems require adequate levels of dissolved oxygen( DO) for maximum health and growth.Maintain DO at >5mg/liter.

5.Remove solids
6.Be careful with aggregates. Organic solids may tend to clog aggregates such as pea gravel, sand and perlite. Create anaerobic conditions( low DO) ,kills plants roots, kills beneficial bacteria, can be mitigated by adding worms to aggregate substrate to process organics.
7.Oversize pipes
8.Use biological control
9.Ensure adequate biofiltration
10.Control PH
11.Use only 1 pump.