Aquaponics Top 10 Requirements

credit to: Fresh with Edge 

link: http://freshwithedge.com/2012/10/top-10-requirements-for-successful-aquaponics/

Saturday morning of the Aquaponics Association Conference was kicked off by featured speaker Dr. Wilson Lennard. Dr Lennard kicked off the festivities with a very fitting speech about the Top 10 Requirements for Successful Aquaponics. Showing off his years of research into this field, I would challenge anyone to come up with a better top 10 list than what we have here. You may be able to modify this list to fit your specific region or situation, but this is a solid base for anyone.

So without further delay, here’s the top 10:

Information

Good quality information is always valuable no matter what stage of the process you are in. Find information with numbers behind it to back it up and trust the science that has been proven. Too many people in this young industry try to completely reinvent the wheel from scratch as soon as they begin their adventure. If you stat with a solid base, decide what works and what could be changed for your situation you will be years ahead of a new custom design making the same set of mistakes as your predecessors.

Correct Design

Knowing what is correct will only come from time. Only time will lead to the ability to say you know what you are doing. Anyone can design a system and show you have wonderful it’s working after 8 months. When that same system is working beautifully 5 years from now, then you have something to impress anyone. In addition to that, the only way that you can prove that something works before running each individual system is to build up your assumptions with Math. Math is what has to be the answer to proper design.

Use Correct Ratios

FACT: The amount of plants that can be grown is directly related to the amount of fish fed per day. This is referred to as the Feeding Rate Ratio. This is the base for any successful ratio. Beyond that you can tweak it to run more fish or more plants, but the base will always be the same.

Maintain Good Water Quality

This is one of my favorite points that he brought up. So many people come to aquaponics from the hydroponics world and only care about the nutrients available to their plants. It’s an easy thing to do, especially when you’re raising something like a tilapia. Tilapia can handle extremely low water quality standards. Their ability to adapt to major variances in tempurature, pH and general water quality is one of the large draws for most people using them for aquaponics. Dr. Lennard brings up the point though, that tilapia deserve good water quality too, toughness should not mean lower standards.In addition to that he pointed out that trout, who are notorious for their necessity for cold, high DO level, and high water quality requirements can actually handle a much higher temperature than what is considered mandatory for a trout as long as the water quality is managed vigorously.

Water Flow Rate

A knowledge of flow rates is important for the design of an aquaponic system. You need to know what the design flow rate is when you create a new system. This leads to the point that your system should be designed from mathematical calculations. Not on what will fill out your greenhouse best or what sizes you can get down at the local hardware store. If you are serious about creating a successful system, you should be creating your system using calculations based on stocking density, water volume and planting/harvest rates.Rule of thumb: Be able to replace the entire fish tank volume in one hour

Proper D.O

This isn’t extremely complex in implementation, being that there isn’t any way (without using liquified oxygen) that you can overdo your DO inputs. So most people will just go a little overboard with it and call it good. One thing that you may want to pay attention to is the fact that you also want to keep proper DO levels available for your root system. In slower moving DWC systems you may need to add air stones to your trough to allow for proper oxygen availability to your plants.

Water Temp

This is something that you think of most with your fish, but it is important to all three. Being that your fish are cold blooded creatures, their entire system temperature depends on the water temperature surrounding them. If water temperature swings in either direction too quickly for a fish the bacteria in the gut of a fish will start to work out of control on any available fish food. This is why it’s important to refrain from feeding your fish in a temperature swing.For your plants the root systems will prefer a certain temperature range depending on the time of season that they grow in with a normal garden/field condition. In addition to that, the efficiency of your nitrifying bacteria will take large hits when temperature starts to drop too far. This will cause water quality issues and possible, depending on your margins for error, can lead to inadequate nutrient availability.

PH Level & Testing

Always know the level of your pH. Your pH level should be a constantly moving target. The level of your pH should be in a constant free-fall (lowering, acidifying) due to the nitrification process causing a drop of hydrogen particles from the amonia.

Buffering

Because of all this occurring with your pH level changes, you should constantly be checking your levels and adding a buffering agent such as calcium hydroxide & potassium carbonate. This should be done on a daily basis to keep from large swings in pH levels.

Quality Fish Feed

Last but not least you need to make sure you are using a high quality fish feed. Keep in mind that using a high quality fish food will lead to high quality fish waste which will eventually become your high quality nutrients for your plants.

These are the top 10 requirements for successful aquaponics that Dr Lennard listed out for everyone. I think this makes up a fairly comprehensive list from what I know so far. Do you have any you would add or anything that you would add to the list that you find mandatory for your aquaponics system?