Aquaponics, growing herbs with fish

Aquaponics - Breathing Life Into Plants

Aquaponics is the integration of tank-based fish cultivation (aquaculture) with intensive plant production using water instead of soil in which to grow the plants (hydroponics)

We've teamed up with Ashley Berrysmith, a pioneer in the production of sprouts and baby leaf salad greens, and Wilson Lennard (PhD), one of the world's leading aquaponic scientists, to conduct a trial on our site in Riwaka.

The purpose of the trial is to compare the difference in growth and quality between conventional hydroponics and ground breaking aquaponics technology.

The trial involves a number of large tanks in which grass carp are kept. Eighty percent of the carp's waste is ammonia produced from their gills. The water, now enriched with ammonia, is filtered and pumped through a bio-filter that uses natural bacteria to convert the ammonia to nitrate. This is a valuable nitrogen source for the plants. You could say that the fish breathe life into plants.

The plants filter the water using up the nitrate and the water is then recycled back to the fish and the process starts again.

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Video of Aquaponics Trial

Courtesy of Country99 TV

Have a look at this video. We easily solved the issue of the fish not eating during winter once we discovered our heat pump was faulty.

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Benefits of Aquaponics

Why we are so impressed with the trial so far?

- It is a highly efficient food production method with close to zero environmental impact
- 100% of the nutrients are used creating two crops (fish and plants) from the one nutrient source (fish food)
- Most of the water is recycled; the only water that ever leaves the system is in the harvested crops or is lost by transpiration through the leaves of the plants
- As a source of protein fish are the most efficient converters of feed out of all farmed animals, achieving a feed to flesh conversion rate of close to 100%
- Aquaponics can be utilised anywhere in the world provided that enough water for the establishment of the system is available
- Aquaponics takes up significantly less space than traditional farming methods. This means that systems can be located right in the middle of cities if need be, reducing transport costs and environmental impact.

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Nelson Mail article

Fish used to grow herbs - Nelson Mail article.

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