Aquaponics

Aquaponics is the portmanteau (combination of words) of "Aquaculture" and "Hydroponics."

This is a huge subject, so I'm just going to start this page, and add as I have time...

Fish Food

The chief input to your system is the feed. I do not believe that typical pet store goldfish food is going to provide enough nutrition beyond what your fish requires, to then also leave requisite trace minerals for your plants.

I mix it up a good amount:

• Some leafy greens from the grow beds
• And, I do use GMO-free, Organic Aquaponic-specific formulation with 34% protein.

Here's what the nutrition/ingredients look like on that:

Experiments

Among the ongoing experiments related to Aquaponics is specifically how to craft an entirely self-sufficient supply of fish feed, which, as I stated, is the primary input to the system.

• Duckweed -- grows quite easily in your Aquaponic system (although does so at the expense of nitrates).
  • Can be used to feed fish good, living, fresh greens, which is just plain healthy for them.

• Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) -- extremely easy, nearly self-contained constant production of protein.
  • Studies show that up to 25% of the diet of many fish can be replaced with BSFL without sacrificing growth speed, protein quality, or waste production (Zhang et al., 2014a and Zhang et al., 2014b)