Aquaponics is a process that combines the rearing of fish in aquaculture with the cultivation of plants in hydroponics. There are various approaches to transferring the nutrients produced by the fish to the plants.
Here you will find an overview of the different types of planting.
An overview of aquaponics system types can be seen here.
Both aquaponics and hydroponics systems are always part of a closed-loop system. Aquaponics, for fish production, always includes a hydroponic system for plant cultivation. The system works by using the waste from fish farming as nutrients for the plants. This happens automatically in our systems via dosing systems. By appropriately controlling the nutrient supply – which is optimized for the selected plant species and development stage – the closed loop ensures that well over 90% of the necessary nutrients, i.e., the investment, are actually contained in the two final products (vegetables and fish).
In contrast to soil-based planting, the following advantages arise
- High yield: 500m 2 produces up to 8 tons of fish and 16 tons of tomatoes per year.
- Minimal space requirement: Profitability from 500 m 2
- Weather independence: Year-round operation and yield
- Independence from precipitation: closed cycle
- Very low water consumption
- No use of pesticides
- No use of herbicides
- No use of medication
- No damage to groundwater: closed circuit
We offer control systems for the automated management of your aquaponics and hydroponics systems. Our offerings range from systems used solely for documentation purposes to fully autonomous system control.
Related article: What is aquaponics?
Aquaponics and hydroponics: situation, market demand and development
Food production depends on the availability of resources such as land, freshwater, fossil energy, and nutrients (Conijn et al. 2018), and the current consumption or depletion of these resources exceeds their global regeneration rate (Van Vuuren et al. 2010). The concept of planetary boundaries aims to define the ecological limits within which humanity can operate with respect to finite and sometimes scarce resources (Rockström et al. 2009).
Biochemical flow limits that restrict food supply are more stringent than climate change (Steffen et al. 2015, see figure below). In addition to nutrient recycling, dietary changes and waste prevention are essential to transforming current production (Conijn et al. 2018; Kahiluoto et al. 2014). Therefore , a major challenge is to shift the growth-oriented economic model to a balanced ecological economic paradigm—replacing infinite growth with sustainable development (Manelli 2016).
To achieve a more balanced, practical and sustainable situation, innovative and ecological farming systems are required so that trade-offs between immediate human needs can be balanced while preserving the biosphere's ability to provide the necessary goods and services (Ehrlich and Harte 2015).
In this context, aquaponics (aquaculture + hydroponics) has been identified as an agricultural approach that can contribute to achieving both planetary boundaries (see figure below) and sustainable development goals through nutrient and waste recycling, especially in arid regions or areas with non-agricultural soils (Goddek and Körner 2019; Appelbaum and Kotzen 2016; Kotzen and Appelbaum 2010).
Aquaponics is also seen as a solution for utilizing marginal land in urban areas for near-market food production. Once a "backyard technology" (Bernstein 2011), aquaponics is now rapidly evolving into industrial production, as technical improvements in design and practice have significantly increased production capacity and efficiency. One such area of development is coupled and decoupled aquaponics.
Traditional designs for single-loop aquaponics systems include both aquaculture and hydroponic units, with water circulating between them. In such traditional systems, compromises are necessary regarding the conditions of the two subsystems in terms of pH, temperature, and nutrient concentration (Goddek et al. 2015; Kloas et al. 2015, Chapter 7).
A decoupled aquaponics system can reduce the need for compromises by separating the components and allowing the conditions in each sub-system to be optimized.
Especially the problem of complex transport
(From the region for the region) is increasingly becoming an environmental and cost problem in cities.
Initial experiments, such as the cultivation of herbs in hydroponic systems, which can be seen in the first supermarkets and retail stores, illustrate the potential with the effect of reducing costs by saving on transport and storage, as well as gaining customer acceptance and their interest in the problem of future supply, since the herbs can be picked on site by the customer themselves in these systems.
The picture shows a system in a supermarket of the Edeka chain of the company Infarm / Berlin.
According to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), approximately 70 percent of global freshwater consumption is used for agriculture and processing. In contrast, aquaponics enables food production with 50 to 90 percent less water consumption: the savings are 50 percent compared to traditional single-circuit systems – simply due to the dual use of water.
A dual-circuit system with water recovery even achieves savings of around 90 percent. In this production system, fresh water only needs to compensate for losses due to evaporation and the removal of biomass from the system.
Available resources for nutrition
Given the resource situation, a rethinking of food supply is inevitable. The current status of the control variables for seven of the planetary boundaries described by Steffen et al. (2015) is shown in the graph above.
The green zone is the safe operating range, the yellow zone represents the zone of uncertainty (increasing risk), the red zone is a high-risk zone, and the gray zone boundaries are those that have not yet been quantified. The blue-bordered variables (i.e., land system change, freshwater use, and biochemical fluxes) indicate the planetary boundaries on which aquaponics can have a positive impact.
This graph clearly shows that the "limits to growth" (Club of Rome, 1972) have already been reached. Traditional agriculture is already experiencing significant yield losses, not least due to soil depletion by various chemicals (such as glyphosate, see BUND study, 2013) – at least where the use of this chemical is still permitted.
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