by definition "the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a recirculating environment."
what that means:
Fish such as Tilapia are tank raised. the dirty fish water is pumped through gravel filled grow beds, where plants growing in the gravel extract the nutrients. The water then returns to the fish tank cleaned and freshly oxygenated. The two combine together beautifully to create an efficient growing system that uses little power, very little water, and yet produces quite an incredible amount of produce for the area that it uses.
no chemicals and no wastes, using about one tenth of the water used in dirt grown vegetables.
Aquaponics can come in a myriad of forms, and likewise the amount of money that you spend on a system can vary just as much. Aquariums, bathtubs, barrels, old swimming pools, water troughs and plastic tubs, right through to custom made steel or fiberglass, the possibilities are endless, but with a few basic principles a system can easily be built, and quite often with bits that you may have laying around the house or farm. So long as you can find water proof containers, then your on your way.
Systems don’t need to be made using gravel grow beds either, it could be as simple as polystyrene foam sheets floating on the surface of the water, with plants poking through the foam into the water below, NFT (nutrient film technique) guttering, or aeroponics can also be used, systems are limited only by your imagination.
Aquaponics is just beginning to catch on in the US, but has been popular in europe and asia for years.
Well be working on construction of an aquaponic system in the near future.
for more information see the Australian based backyard aquaponics forum at Backyard Aquaponics
