How Aquaponics Works

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.

One of the major issues with aquaculture is that when cultivating fish or other sea animals, large amounts of effluents (wastewater) is produced since it is a closed system. This matter is dangerous and toxic for the fish to live in. The result is polluted water and fish that isn’t safe to eat. So as a result you have to constantly change out the water every day which means wasted water. The water you’re disposing of might be harmful to the fish but it is beneficial for other purposes as you’ll find out.

The issue with hydroponics is that it requires costly nutrients in order to feed the plants. The money spent to feed the plants often makes is difficult for the average person to sustain it over an extended period of time. There are some DIY hydroponic nutrient recipes, but it can be time consuming to create. Also, you have to flush out your system periodically. It can be difficult to find methods to constantly dispose of all this wastewater.

Aquaponics introduces a solution to these issues, while providing an entirely new way to cultivate aquatic animals and plants at the same time.

Through aquaponics, the wastewater and effluents are utilized to provide nutrients to the plants used in the process. In laments terms, the fish fertilize the plants. This enables the aquaponic system to remain a closed system without the need to constantly change out the water and also allows it to operate with minimal amounts of water.

An aquaponic system consists of three major items:

• Fish
• Plants
• Bacteria

Later on, we will touch on each of these elements, but just remember that these are the three components essential for any aquaponic system. Through feeding the fish, they produce effluents from their waste and uneaten food that collects at the bottom of your tanks. Bacteria turn that wastewater into nutrients necessary for the plants to grow and thrive. As you harvest the plants, the water becomes clean again and the process repeats.

The image above demonstrates the basic process of a simple aquaponic system. This is to show you the flow of the nutrients and process of how an aquaponic system works.To the left is a grow bed where the plants are harvested. The bed is filled with gravel or clay pebbles. On the right is a fish tank. The water goes from the fish tank to the grow bed. As the water seeps through the grow bed and the roots of the plants, the plants get all of the nutrients they need in order to grow and consequently cleans out the ammonia waste. Then the water is drained back into the tank clean and safe for the fish to swim in. The process of converting the ammonia produced by the fish into nitrates for the plants is known as The Nitrogen Cycle.