What is Aquaponics?

Aquaponics gardening is fairly new farming technology with a unique twist. It is a symbiotic relationship between fish, microbes and plants. The waste materials from the plants are fed to the fish. The fish eat this plant matter, fish release their own waste, the microbes eliminate the ammonia in the fish waste, and nitrates are then fed to the plants. This process is done completely without any soil.

This recirculating system is designed to raise large quantities of fish in fairly small volumes of water by treating the water, removing toxic waste products and then reusing it. Because of the high content of Nitrogen from the bacterial waste, the plants grow quicker and in astounding quantities too. Ammonia and nitrites are toxic to fish, but nitrate is relatively harmless and is the preferred form of nitrogen for growing higher plants such as fruiting vegetables. http://www.ca.uky.edu/wkrec/454fs.PDF

Some people may think that aquaponics seems like a lot of work and it is hard to keep up with. Not true… it is a pretty easy set up and once your fish are growing, it will be less monitoring on the whole system . Aquaponics uses very little water and there is no waste. You can provide vegetables and fruit at a quicker rate than conventionally grown soil vegetables, and once your fish reach a certain size you will have a ready made protein source too.

Aquaponics uses two percent of the water used of conventional farming. It will use even less if you collect rain water and add that to your system. Aquaponic farmers are not dependent on huge amounts of water as conventional in-ground farmers need. It does not have the same environmental impact of tremendous water consumption and waste.

Aquaponics can produce UP TO EIGHT TIMES more the quantities of any regular soil grown produce. The vegetables will usually grow two times faster, and at three to four times the density, without ever depleting any of the nutrients.

This superior way of growing food means the aquaponics system does not require any soil, or even the land because everything your family needs to eat better can be grown on a porch, backyard, small greenhouse or even a basement.

The World Is Starving

If more third world countries were able to create an aquaponics system in their local communities, we could eliminate hunger within a short period of time. Education is key for this to happen. More people world wide need to know the amazing benefits of having a system like this in place.

However, the fact that people are starving around the world is usually and almost always, related to greed. Setting up many small aquaponics communities in places like Somalia and India could virtually eradicate hunger.

While bags of rice and goods delivered to third world countries are wonderful, they are only short term fixes. This will never help the long term problems of hunger. There will be another drought in a different place next year. We need to educate more people worldwide on how to become self sufficient by using a system like aquaponics.

There is no need for any person to go hungry ever again if we each had our own small Aquaponics system and started to farm this way. Many third world countries already have an advantage because of the weather. They can virtually farm outdoors using the aquaponics system twelve months of the year. So why is the world starving?

The Economic Downturn

With our world economies in trouble it seems more financially sound to grow your own renewable food supply! Grain and corn is being burned as fuel, does that make sense to anyone? Food prices are soaring at the stores all the time. What once bought your family a full weeks supply of groceries, barely lasts three days now.

Shouldn’t we be taking better care of our own survival? Shouldn’t we all, be making more positive decisions about our food and nutrition too?

Crops are being sprayed with pesticides and chemicals, deadly bacteria’s showing up farm grown food and regulations burdening more farmers; WE each need to take control of our own food needs and supply now.

Every major financial wizard says it is just a matter of time before the American Economy collapses. We can no longer sustain ourselves at the rate we have been going. With that in mind it is crucial that we learn to use other methods to benefit ourselves when it comes to food.  It really doesn’t matter how much gold and silver you have saved, all of that will be completely worthless if you have nothing to eat.

Aquaponics can feed a family and supply all the nutrients a body needs. Fish and vegetables in abundance year round…