Aquaponics Basics
Aquaponics for Everybody
[quote]While that can look a little intimidating for the home hydroponics grower or conscientious home grower in terms of getting started, relax….aquaponics can be easy, simple and aesthetically pleasing in home or community surroundings.[/quote]
Aquaponics Basics:
If you enjoy hydroponics gardening and wanted to get started on growing crops with Aquaponics a great place to start your schooling is in the area of Bio-Filters & Bio-Filtration.
Understanding the Nitrogen Cycle (Wiki Diagram BELOW) is something you should have a firm grasp of if you are at all serious about gardening; especially with natural fertilizers or processes like organics or aquaponics.
Essentially, aquaponics systems are living filters, so if you know what it is that needs to be filtered (fish waste) and how it can be done (crops, bio-filters), you are well on your way to cultivating success with Aquaponics.
Aquatic Landscapes to Feed Your Garden!
Industrial aquaponics looks really neat–reminiscent of a high tech biospehere or even space station concept. While that can look a little intimidating for the home hydroponics grower or conscientious home grower in terms of getting started, relax….aquaponics can be easy, simple and aesthetically pleasing in home or community surroundings. Remember, the aquaponics basics principles you are putting to work has been around for a loooong time; you don’t need to reinvent anything. As you learn more about this subject, you may notice it’s been around you in nature the whole time–as you learns to identify aquaponics basics principles and understand their applications.
Simple Ways to Get Started with Aquaponics Basics
If you already have a fresh water fish pond or aquarium that is in good health and utilizes a filtration system, you may already have what you need to get started with aquaponics basics. Adding the sludge from your filtration system to your watering barrel is an easy way for you to see some benefits right away. For example, in the photo below a 30 gallon fresh water aquarium filter is being added to a half full 55 Gallon drum to be watered into a crop of soilless grown plants in the vegetative growth phase. A lot of people simply throw away the unsightly sludge–without realizing all the benefits it holds by way of natural fertilizers and healthy microbial activity. Houseplants quickly show thanks with a burst of healthy and lush growth. Vegetable gardeners notice hardier plants and a reduced need to add conventional fertilizers through the growing season.
Getting Serious?
Once you have the aquaponics basics, you can adapt many types of water culture systems used for growing hydroponics crops for use as as Aquaponics systems to raise both fish and crops successfully. Inda-Gro Systems has done some amazing work and created great growing opportunities for home and commercial applications by marrying Current Culture H2O’s world famous hydro system design in a greenhouse to Koi, Tilapia and Bass production tanks.
