What is Aquaponics?

Aquaponics is an exciting, innovative new way to grow quality organic food. Not
only do we get tasty greens and vegetables as yields but we get to add to our plates
clean freshwater fish!

The premise is simple: In a greenhouse, fish are grown in large tanks and produce a nutrient rich water that is then pumped from the tanks to a soil-less growing bed situated above the tanks.

The grow bed contains nothing but gravel, one foot deep. This is the main support structure for our plants roots, and a home to the wild abundance of beneficial microbes and even composting worms who eat the nutrient in the fish water and make it available to the plants for uptake. This nutrient laden water enters the gravel bio-filter grow-bed, is filtered clean, oxygenated and returned by gravity feed back to the fish tanks. Basically, the fish poo and the plants eat it and give back clean water to the fish.

Symbiotic Relationships

There is a beautiful synergistic relationship between fish and plants and the
urban environment that allows us to really close some loops and ease the labor
required to grow food. And that is what sets aquaponics apart from more traditional
organic farming. Here are some connections and benefits:

• We are free from having to produce large amounts of fertile soil to grow our food and can instead amend our plants with occasional compost tea sprays. This cuts a huge amount of time and labor out of the food growing process.

• We are no longer required to irrigate. All the water stays in the system. We lose a small amount of water due to evaporation and transpiration but we can catch the rainwater we need to replenish the system from the greenhouse surface alone. This is a big deal in the city where water is purchased and chlorinated, or in places with limited water access or shallow wells

• Aquaponics is well suited for the city. We can build this system in areas that are not naturally well suited for agriculture, like a blacktop parking-lot or a rooftop in downtown Victoria. There are so many vacant, ugly unused little hot spaces in the city. Some of them may have toxicity issues in the soil if there is any soil at all. Aquaponics opens up these spaces to becoming vibrant and productive green-spaces. On-top of concrete, we can build upwards and grow fresh food and market it directly to local residents and restaurants, saving on transportation costs and storage time while utilizing the effects of the urban heat sink.

• Current aquaponic operations are reporting higher yeilds in shorter amounts of time due to the nature of soil-less growing processes that allow the plant quicker uptake of Oxygen and Nutrient.

•  The use of a greenhouse allows for a longer growing season. Friends of ours, Casa Verde CSA  in Hood River Oregon,  with very similar winter temperatures and number of sunny days are selling tomatoes in the beginning of March!

• Our system will contain over 2o ooo Litres of water acting as thermal mass which will further lengthen our growing season to allow for year round food production for many crops.

Aquaponics utilizes energy efficient technology to circulate, aerate and heat the
water, but this still requires grid connection and power use. Our goal over the next 2
years is to transition this system to being less grid dependent by utilizing solar and wood gasification technologies to make an even more resilient system.