An Aquaponics System Is Born

An Aquaponics System Is Born

  The developer of our aquaponics system got started in this during a time when his wife was battling cancer and saw the need of a better quality food being grown without herbacides and pesticides. He continued developing this system even after his wife’s passing, creating a floating raft method of growing food.    The rafts are made of a steam expanded polystyrene that will not leach chemicals into the water unlike the blue and pink type of insulation foam that is sometimes used in DIY systems. A separate tank holds the fish with the water running into a separate shallow grow tank that holds the rafts. This grow tank is created by molded panels that can be fitted together in whatever length is desired, much like a raised bed garden. This has a food grade polypropylene liner fastened to it with stainless steel fasteners to create the grow tank where the rafts float on top of the water that flows through it from the fish tank. The floating rafts have tapered holes that hold a small grow puck that the plants grow in. The roots of the plants extend into the grow tank and get their nourishment from the water in the grow tank that is fertilized by the fish. This captures the same benefits that nature’s ecological system uses to clean water through a wetland. The Gills & Greens Aquaponics System makes it easy for you to be up and “growing” in no time at all! Each system will consist of the following parts: The Grow Frame – The number of sides defined by system size (nominal 4’ long...
How Aquaponics Work

How Aquaponics Work

So how does an aquaponics system work? An aquaponics system operates under the same principles as a lake, a river, or other ecological system. All aquaponics systems, however, keep the plants and fish separate because the fish eat the roots of plants. They are herbivores. So, by necessity, the aquaponics system is composed of two compartments; one tank for the plants and one tank for the fish.   In the plant tank, commonly called a grow bed, we use Expanded Polystyrene floats as a growing platform. Other people choose to use a solid media bed for growing. We feel that the float system is the cleanest and requires the least amount of work. Each float has holes cast into the material that define the number of plants (32 for 2’x4’ and 55 for 2’x2’) that each float can handle. One can choose between either one 2’x4’ or two 2’x2’ floats for each 2’ wide section in the grow bed. That choice will be determined by the selection of plants you want to grow or whether you want to use part of your grow bed for growing seedlings. At the bottom of each cast hole there are four little feet cast into the floats that help support a “puck” of coir growing media. The puck is dry and compressed with a surrounding cotton mesh. One is inserted in each location before the float board is placed on the water in the grow bed, and a seed is then placed in the center depression of each puck. When the puck gets wet it begins to expand and develop into a plug...