Green Drinks and Aquaponics

Every month around the world in various cities, people interested in ecological and environmental issues get together informally to talk and learn about different topics over cocktails.

These groups meet everywhere from Albania to Vietnam and everywhere in between, INCLUDING right here in Key West.

“Green Drinks Key West” meets monthly at Muse, the upstairs bar at Kelly’s Caribbean Bar, Grill and Brewery at 301 Whitehead Street, and this past week we were treated to a presentation by Dr Bill Irwin of KFCC on AQUAPONICS.

We have long been interested in aquaponics and possibly even implementing a system on a larger plot of land – but where to begin?!  We never liked Chemistry in college, and even biology was not our thing, so we worried this might be a very complicated endeavor.

Dr. Bill made it all so simple – and you can build this all yourself as he did in his back yard!  Our layman’s description as to HOW TO follows:

What you need are 3 different tanks, ‘planters’ or areas/‘beds’ to

1. grow your plants,

2. an area ‘tank’ for your fish, and

3. an area (the lowest area gravity-wise) where water is recirculated to and from.

So, how easy is that!  Dr. Bill built three beautiful – what looked like large planters – on the ground and lined them with a heavy non-toxic plastic.  The first would recirculate the water and would have a pump.  The next ‘planter’ would hold the fish [he used talapia].

One of the BONUSES to using the aquaponics system [besides growing hydroponic veggies] is you get to enjoy (EAT!) unbelievably better tasting fruits, vegetables, AND fish!  In researching this article we read you can even do prawns…now we’re really interested!

Then the last ‘planter’ holds the plants you are growing, which are grown, not in dirt, but in a bed of clay pellets, and you can grow everything from tomatoes and herbs to corn, strawberries, and broccoli.  We learned it is best to start your plants from seed in water – not dirt.

From here it is pretty simple – the fish poop and that is the fertilizer for the plants. There is little evaporation compared to conventional agriculture as water is re-circulated.  The intense use of fresh water in normal agriculture is a grave concern these days when it comes to feeding a growing world population and aquaponics can solve this water related problem.  In fact aquaponics uses approximately 2% of the water that a conventional farm would use to grow the same amount of food.

Since you can stack these ‘beds’ or ‘tanks’ on top of one another, aquaponic production of both crops and fish in areas where water or fertile land is scarce is a much better and efficient use of land and water – 2 very precious and dwindling resources.

A commercial aquaponics system. An electric pump moves effluent rich water from the fish tank through a solids filter to remove particles the plants above cannot absorb. The water then provides nutrients for the plants and is cleansed before returning to the fish tank below where the process repeats.

Aquaponic systems can be designed and built to to use few resources.  Solar panels can be used to operate the pumps for the system and if the system is designed to fully utilize gravity so water will flow down, fewer pumps, and electricity will be needed.

Other considerations for successful aquaponic systems were discussed such as the use of ladybugs to control pests, worms to aid plant growth, duckweed for the fish, and bees for pollination – in fact in the right location you might consider setting up a bee colony, you get pollinators and honey!

SO – are you ready to give it a try?    The book Aquaponic Gardening was recommended to us and we were assured it was a one night read – my kind of book!

If it all still seems a little overwhelming with building beds and buying pumps and fish and all, you can start small with one of these self-contained aquarium type aquaponic systems:

For as little as $59.99 [the one above is available at ThinkGeek] you can have your own beta fish tank and herb garden.  NO, you can’t eat this poor little fish but you can grow and enjoy fresh organic basil, chives, and oregano or whatever herbs you like.  Then you can progress on to something bigger down the road!

Green Drinks and all the attendees thank Dr. Bill Irwin for his time spent with all of us and for opening our eyes to the possibilities of what we can do with a little time and effort and aquaponics.  Keep an eye for the opening of the large aquaponics garden being developed at FKCC which should be opening before the end of the year.

Go to www.greendrinks.org for worldwide info about Green Drinks! For info on Green Drinks Key West contact Alison Higgins at 305-809-3726.