by Leon Yoder | Jun 12, 2015 | System
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...
