SynergyFish - Aquaponics

Date ant Time:  August 2, 2011  8:00pm

Presenter:  Dave Pennington

                  SynergyFish – Aquaponics

Dave’s expertise lies in Aquaponics.  I had the opportunity to hear Dave’s lecture at the Renewable Energy Roundup at Fredericksburg Texas last year and was very impressed by his knowledge of the subject.  There are 6 videos of his Fredericksburg presentation on YouTube.  The following is segment 1 of 6.

A type of Aquaponics called ‘Chinampas’ was used back in 1500 by the Aztecs in their capital city of Tenochtitlan.  At the time, this was the largest city in the world.  Fish were raised in the channel and the larger willow trees and posts were used to retain the soil at the elevated growing beds.

Chinampas

At the present time 85% of our water goes into agriculture and almost 80% of the world’s fisheries are fully to over exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse.  Right now, Aquaculture provides about half of all fish production.  Per capita consumption of fish will continue to rise as 3^rd world nations become wealthier.  Aquaponics would be able to conserve water used for irrigation as well as provide protein from the harvesting of fish.

Aquaponics is a truly sustainable food production method that uses just a fraction of water normally used for agriculture and aquaculture.  It efficiently uses a resource considered waste, eliminates chemical fertilizer pollution and relieves pressure on ocean species by providing fish protein.  It also allows for efficient local production of food.

small Aquaponics garden

Aquatic species that can be used in Aquaponics include:

• Tilapia
• Goldfish
• Catfish
• Trout
• Bass
• Freshwater Prawns (Shrimp)
• Barramundi, jade perch, etc.

Tilapia is one of the fish better suited for Aquaponics.  It produces between 500 and 1000 eggs every 2 or 3 weeks.  They can be confined up to one pound of fish per gallon of water in a rearing tank (not including grow beds).  The fish are omnivorous, hearty, easily bred and fast growing.  They can be fed organic pelleted feeds, black soldier fly larvae, vegetable scraps, duckweek and other ‘weeds’.  The black soldier fly larvae convert garbage into grubs for animal feed.  The grubs contain high amounts of protein and fast.

another example of a small Aquaponics garden

Dave has been developing a construction material called ‘Papercrete’ which is a made of recycled paper, Styrofoam and Portland cement.  It has good structural and insulating properties.  He estimates an R-factor of 3 for the material and is constructing domes formed by inflating a ‘balloon’ as a form and applying the Papercrete to this form.  He is also working on a Community Garden Coalition project in S.E. Dallas that will include an Aquaponics greenhouse.  You can see this project at:

www.facebook.com/Urban-Comminity-Garden-Coalition

Examples of Aquaponics developments can be found at:

http://bioshelters.com/

http://www.aquaranch.com/

http://herbanfarms.com/

Dave Pennington’s web site is:

http://aquaponicscommunity.com/profile/DavePennington