What is Aquaponics?
Taught by Oko Farms
Oko Farms is an urban farm, education and design company located in Brooklyn, New York.
We utilize a hybrid of aquaculture and hydroponics known as aquaponics to raise freshwater fish along with a variety of vegetables and herbs. On our farm, waste water from the fish tank is constantly pumped through several hydroponic grow beds to provide nutrient rich fertilizer for our plants. In return, the plants filter all of the toxic waste from the water while it cycles through the system. This constant cycling of nutrients via fish waste creates an extremely efficient recycling system that allows us to avoid the toxic environmental run-off that characterizes current aquaculture practices.
By implementing aquaponics in New York City, we shrink our carbon footprint for fish consumption, reduce the ecosystem pollution and health concerns associated with commercial-scale aquaculture, and produce a high-yield of organically grown vegetables in dense urban spaces.
Aquaponics, also known as recirculating aquaculture, is hybrid of two farming techniques: aquaculture, or fish farming, and hydroponics, or soil-less plant growing. By bringing the two together we get the best of both worlds.
Fish and plants grow together in an organic closed loop system that works perfectly for an urban setting. It uses 10% of the water used in traditional farming and provides you, not only with pesticide free fruits and vegetables, but healthy and delicious high protein fresh water fish.
In this class, we'll learn the basics of how aquaponics works and how it may soon be the future of farming across the globe. We will go over the nitrogen cycle and how beneficial bacteria are the engine behind an aquaponics system. We will talk about 3 different methods (NFT, DWC and CHOP systems) that are used to grow food via aquaponics.
After discussion, we will demonstrate how to build a small window sill aquaponics unit using an old 5 gallon water jug where you can grow herbs from goldfish waste!
Join the the future of farming and become an Aquapon!
