Sustainability and Wellness

Health Benefits It’s no coincidence that people who choose to eat organic food live overall healthier lives than those who don’t. Food bought from stores and restaurants are loaded with chemicals, steroids, fats, and ingredients that are not conducive to a healthy lifestyle. This is one area in which aquaponics gives you a great advantage. Everything is handled right in your backyard and is controlled completely by you. That means that you know exactly what is going into your food from the moment you begin setting up your system. You are getting completely organic food through aquaponics.

Benefits of Aquaponics Now that you have an understanding of how Aquaponics works, you can probably guess some of the many benefits of such a great system. However, there may be some benefits that you overlooked or never even thought about. The primary reasons people set up this organic sustainable food production method are: To improve health (100% organic food) To save money To help the environment In addition to those benefits, aquaponics is also extremely easy to set up. Because it requires such little space and doesn’t require a lot of maintenance, it’s possible to set up your system in a very limited space, hence the popular trend of “backyard aquaponics”.

How Aquaponics Works As you know, aquaponics combines farming plants and fish symbiotically. Before you can understand how aquaponics works, it’s important to realize why it’s so essential. By combining aquaculture and hydroponics, it removes a lot of (if not all) the issues with the two separate methods.

What is Aquaponics? Aquaponics is a combination of two different food cultivation methods. Hydroponics: A sustainable method of growing plants in water without soil. Instead, it utilizes mineral nutrient solutions and water. Aquaculture: This is essentially aqua farming. It is the practice of cultivating animals that live in water such as fish and mollusks under your control. In a nutshell, aquaponics combines hydroponics and aquaculture into one symbiotic system consisting of plants and aquatic organisms. There is definitely some science involved in the process, but at its most basic elements, aquaponics farming is simple and the benefits are unmatched.

Ten hints to mantain an excellent ap system 1. Use a feeding rate ratio for design calculations  2. Keep feed input relatively constant  3. Supplement with calcium, potassium and iron  4. Ensure good aeration  5. Remove solids  6. Be careful with aggregates  7. Oversize pipes  8. Use biological control  9. Ensure adequate biofiltration  10. Control pH