Aquaculture- Hydroponics

In 1970 Norman E. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifetime of work to feed a hungry world. Dr. Borlaug has inspired the Community BioRefinery since its inception. With the advanced technology the CBR applies, we can now look at Aquaponics vs. Hydroponics vs. Aquaculture for the betterment of feeding a hungry world.

Both hydroponics and aquaponics have clear benefits over soil-based horticulture: lessened, unfavorable environmental impacts, reduced usage of resources, faster plant development, and even higher yields. Researchers around the world believe that that aquaponics is a better choice over hydroponics when selecting a soilless expanding system.

What is aquaponics-- and what is the difference between aquaponics, tank farming, and hydroponics? Let's begin with the essentials.

'Ponics' is a Greek word that describes: toil, labor, work hard, exhaustion; effort; additionally, suffering (those of us in aquaponics can relate to the last interpretation).

Aqua is a light bluish-green shade, and hydro describe water.

The straightforward meaning of tank farming is a fish ranch whose primary goal is to raise fish for consumption. A lot more specifically, aquaculture is the farming of aquatic microorganisms such as fish, shellfish, and plants. The term aquaculture refers to the growing of marine and freshwater varieties and can vary from land-based to open-ocean manufacturing.

Hydroponics is the growing of plants in a nutrient remedy as opposed to dirt. Some simply say, 'expanding plants without dirt.' In other words, expanding plants is possible by adding plant-specific nutrients to a recirculating water supply.

The theory of using aquaponics is the cooperative growing of plants and aquatic animals in a recirculating atmosphere. It resembles a hydroponics system except as opposed to including nutrients; you rely on the fish as nutrient-generators. That is, you feed the fish (this is the only input), the fish create waste, which waste is converted to nitrates (plant food) with a nitrification process (bacteria).

Given these definitions, we can consider the real words, hydroponics, and also aquaponics. Aquaponics is the 'working of bluish-green water' or the nutrient-rich water produced via a procedure that imitates nature. Hydroponics would undoubtedly be the 'working of water,' which describes growing plants without dirt.

With the increased demand for food and the harvesting of fisheries worldwide, the need for safe fish products will continue to expand. Currently, the United States imports 84% of its seafood, and about half of those imports are from aquaculture (pond or farm-raised). The U.S. trade deficit in fish products exceeds $9 billion per year. With a decreasing supply of fish available from the ocean's fisheries, there is a growing demand for safe and naturally-grown, farm-produced fish in the U.S. There is an excellent opportunity for anyone who can produce a reliable supply of fish products in domestic fisheries.

According to the Turner Tilapia Engineering Study and other aquaculture studies, the single largest cost in producing fish in indoor aquaculture operations is the cost of the fish ration. This cost usually accounts for over 50% of the total cost to produce farm-raised fish. The largest cost in fish rations is the cost of quality protein. Today, hundreds of millions of pounds of trash fish meal is imported and dumped into the U.S. annually from China, Malaysia, and India. This fish meal usually consists of ground-up offal (guts and leftover remains of fish after filleting).

Aquaculture studies sponsored Illinois State University/USDA tilapia feeding trials confirmed that the amino acid balance in feed rations has the greatest influence on feed to weight gain ratios. These ratios determine the amount of feed required to grow fish effectively. With this ratio, the cost per pound of fish grown can be determined.

To maximize the use of our feedstocks in our CBRs, CBR Collaborators sponsored feeding trials using leftover proteins not recovered during our food protein processes. By blending these remaining proteins, the amino acid balance becomes very high and effective with an approximate 2.8 Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER).

According to the Illinois State feeding trials, ration demands on tilapia grown with the CBR leftover proteins were reduced by almost half. Since these were waste proteins, the cost of producing fish rations using these proteins was estimated to be as low as $0.10 per pound or less. Typical feed ration usually costs 3-4 times as much, so this will substantially lower our cost to produce high-quality, organic, safe aquaculture species such as tilapia, catfish, shrimp, bass, and salmon.

The second-largest expense in growing indoor aquaculture is typically thermal energy required to warm the water. Warm water leftover from upstream CBR handling is an exceptional medium for tank farming culture as well as the succeeding production of hydroponics using leftover fish manure as all-natural fertilizer, once more creating safe and also healthy vegetables for the regional community year-round. (Note: the most considerable price of generating hydroponic plants is generally the fertilizers.) Finally, CBRs will certainly generate substantial quantities of hydrogen, which can be used to supply any added energy required to warm the water for year-round aquaculture operations.