How Aquaponics Works

image – public domain (Bangladesh Agricultural University)

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.

One of the challenges of regular 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. It’s really the future – while taking full advantage of natural principles and harmonious closed loop system. It mimics nature and the benefits of this are true abundance. This principle is one of the keys to life and could replace our current flawed, entropic model of consume-discard-destroy.

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.

Here’s an awesome full tutorial into aquaponics systems: Backyard Liberty Aquaponics.

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