Aquaponics

Aquaponics /ˈækwəˈpɒnɨks/ is the simultaneous cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a symbiotic environment where the animal effluents that accumulate in the water are used and filtered out by the plants as nutrients, after which the water is recirculated back to the animals. You could say that Aquaponics is where the food cycle for fish ends and the food cycle for plants begin.The system consists of two parts; one of them a traditional aquaculture system and the other a hydroponic agriculture system, and basically takes the waste by-products generated from aquaculture for use as the nutrient solution for hydroponics. The hydroponics portion of the system in turn acts as the filtration system to maintain water quality for aquaculture portion. The term aquaponics is a portmanteau of the terms aquaculture and hydroponic, hinting at the two functional portions of the system.

Food abundance can be achieved utilizing aquaponics. Since the fertilizer is fish waste, unlimited amounts of plants can be grown with a relatively small amount of water. Impoverished countries can use aquaponics to regain food independence. Artificial food scarcity can be broken and the world can have an aquaponics renaissance, ushering in global well being and prosperity, saving the millions of people that needlessly die each year from starvation.

Aquaponic systems vary in size from small indoor units to large commercial units. They can use fresh or salt water depending on the type of aquatic animal and vegetation.

Our system right now in San Diego is simple and easy to use. Find out more by reading some of our articles:

• Harvest Time Fish Fry With Friends

  We have been very blessed with our aquaponics system and the continued growth of the fish and the vegetables even through this cooler fall season. One of the first reasons that we set up an aquaponics garden was to help off-set our food costs and ...

• Saturday Morning Chores

  [caption id="attachment_1176" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="The Aquaponic Hanging Garden is Filling in Great"][/caption] With all of the gardens and animals that our family has accumulated over the past few years we have a list of chores th...

• Backyard Garden Update

  I shot the following video this morning from our Backyard. We have been crafting around in our spare time working on the aquaponics garden, finishing up the new chicken coop ad-on as well as building a new rabbit hutch for Dexter, our newest family mem...

• Front Yard Gardens

  One of things that is nice about our new place is the extra space that we have.  Unfortunately, in our front yard we have a pretty big driveway but only a little yard space to hang out. So needless to say we had to be creative on where we would pu...

• New Backyard Garden

  This is a home scale aquaponic unit that I installed in our new backyard. It is a pretty cool unit because you can really get the jist of what is going on, as well as keep a good eye on the fish at the same time. I repaired an old 150 gallon fish t...

• Escondido Tilapia Farm

  Just the other day I took a trip out to Escondido, which is in East San Diego County to pick up a few Tilapia from the couple over at the Escondido Tilapia Farm. They had a really cool and inspiring set-up to raise Tilapia for local fish farmers and u...

• Organic Garden Plots

  Shade Garden Our shade garden is starting to take off with the rest of our vegetable gardens. This is the the area that is directly outside of our living room where we keep our fish tank and our seedlings. One of the cymbidium orchid plants that ...

• Visit with Grandma GG

  Last week we went for a road trip up to Pasadena to visit Ricky's Grandma GG  "Great Grandma". The ride up there was simple enough when we timed it to coincide with Eli's morning nap. While we were there we enjoyed visiting with Grandma and spending t...

• Animal Farm

  Our Labrador, Judah, can be a bit of a handful sometimes most of the time. He runs out the back door at every chance he gets, stops every few feet on a walk to sniff/pee/eat,  and will devour darn near anything resembling a food item if given the sli...

• Garden Pond

  Lyndsey and I have slowly been putting together our new aquaponics garden system. Aquaponics is is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a recirculating environment. Fish waste from the pond/tank accumulates in water as a by-produ...

• "My Country Pond"

  Last Saturday we decided to get out of the house for a little so Lyndsey got on Craig's List and found a lady that sales water plants out her yard in Imperial Beach. We didn't quite know what to expect when we got there, but upon our arrival we wer...