Limitations of Aquaponics!

-






 


Disadvantages of Aquaponics

There are a few negative points that you’ll need to weigh up if you are thinking of growing fish and plants aquaponically. So here are some of the main disadvantages of aquaponics.

  • Aquaponics is Not Suitable for All Crops

Aquaponics may be great for some plants such as lettuce varieties and tomatoes, but it’s not the solution for all.

  •  Not Good for Root Vegetables or Tubers

Whilst aquaponics can be a game changer if you want to grow lettuce leaves, you’ll be disappointed if you are a would-be potato farmer. This is because tubers and root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, yams, parsnips and so on prefer to grow in soil and with aquaponics the soil is replaced by water.

  • Not Good for Grains

The scale of the infrastructure needed to produce the equivalent to a field of corn using an aquaponic set up is mind-boggling.

  • Cost of Electricity

Aquaponics relies on input from 2 life forms – the filtering plants and the waste/nutrient supplying marine creatures. Anyone who has owned an aquarium will tell you that fish and other marine creatures can be very sensitive to temperature change and need looking after.

This means that you may have to invest in water pumps along with coolers and/or heaters to keep the water temperature constant and your scaly friends healthy and happy. Running pumps, heaters and so on 24 hours a day can take a lot of electricity if you are running a large aquaponics system. This can really push up the running costs of your set up as well as being bad for the environment.

  • Set Up Costs

One of the big disadvantages of aquaponics can be simply getting started.

The cost of getting your first aquaponics system up and running can be quite dear.  You need tanks, fish, fish food, plants, growing media, net pots to hold the plants and either netting to keep bugs etc off or, if you want to go the whole hog, a greenhouse. And you probably need water pumps, heaters and coolers to keep your fish etc happy depending on the climate where you live.

  • Expensive to Upscale

Setting up an aquaponics system may seem expensive in the first place, but expanding the apparatus for large scale production hits a whole new level of cost.

If you want to move beyond a few fish tanks and plant trays in your greenhouse at home and have plans to use aquaponics for commercial farming, you will need a lot of space, a lot of equipment and will use a lot of power. 

  • Needs Technical Knowledge

If you grab a handful of goldfish from your local pet shop, bung them in a tank and dangle the roots of a few lettuce seedlings into it, the chances are that either your goldfish or your lettuces – or both – will die. 

Both marine creatures and plants like particular conditions for them to thrive. Different fish and molluscs like varying water temperatures and they don’t like that temperature to vary too much. Similarly, different plants prefer specific nutrients in their water supply and so the life forms in your water tank need to be compatible with your plants. 

Most importantly, you need to have the right type of bacteria in your set up to break down the ammonia-based waste produced by the residents of your tanks and turn it into delicious nitrogen-rich food for your plants. 

  • Not A Lot of Fish

It may seem like a bit of a quibble, but unless you are running a very large aquaponics structure you won’t be eating fish for dinner every night.

  • One Part Fails, It All Fails

As aquaponics acts as a closed loop – with the fish providing nutrients for the plants and the plants filtering the water for the fish – if one part of that loop fails, the entire system will go down.


Conclusion

Aquaponics offers a lot of benefits to the adventurous home gardener and can be incredibly rewarding, but it needs sufficient research and understanding before you launch into buying expensive equipment and wiring up power supplies. 


Compiled by: Arjun, Data Scientist

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Principles Aquaponics

-
Image
  Aquaponics: How Does it Work? Aquaponics is seen as a highly efficient farming solution that addresses these multiple farming challenges. By using less water compared to conventional farming, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers, and minimizing waste, aquaponics presents a promise for producing food without damaging our environment. What is Aquaponics? Aquaponics is a sustainable farming method that combines aquaculture (the cultivation of aquatic organisms like fish) with hydroponics (the growing of plants in nutrient-rich water without soil). This combination creates biological processes that occur in both systems to create a closed-loop environment where fish and plants thrive together. How Does Aquaponics Work? In aquaponics, the plants are grown in the grow bed, and fish are placed in the fish tank. The nutrient-rich water from the fish tank that contains fish waste is fed to the grow bed, where billions of naturally occurring beneficial bacteria break the ammonia dow...
Read more

Hydroponic: Nutrient Sensor

-
Image
Features of Hydroponic Nutrient Sensor Hydroponics is an alternative method of growing food using water instead of soil. The hydroponic nutrient sensor meter and nutrient meter track nutrient levels. Features of Hydroponic Nutrient Sensor are: It measures nitrogen levels with an Ion selective sensors (ISE) nitrogen sensor. A nitrogen sensor measures the nitrogen level in its solution. You can use this data to determine whether you need to add more fertilizer or not. Monitors nitrate levels with a nitrate ISE sensor. A nitrate sensor monitors nitrate levels in its solution. This allows you to see how much nitrate is available in your solution. Detects ammonia levels with an ammonium ISE sensor. The ammonia sensor detects ammonium levels in water. It will let you know when the level is too high. You can adjust the pH of your solution to reduce ammonia levels. Check pH levels with an ISE pH sensor. A pH sensor is a small device that connects to the sample. It measures the pH of your water...
Read more

Google AI: Unlocking Human Brain?

-
Image
  Incredible images of the human brain Researchers from Google AI and Harvard Medical School collaborated to create stunningly detailed images of the human brain using advanced AI. The project involved analyzing a tiny piece of human brain tissue, about 3 millimeters long, which came from the anterior temporal lobe of the cortex. This seemingly insignificant piece of tissue required an astounding 1. 4 petabytes of data to describe its complexity – that’s a million gigabytes! Here are some of the incredible images generated by this project: A view through six layers of the brain:  This image shows the six layers of the cortex, with neurons colored according to their size and type. The surface of the brain is visible at the top of the image. pen_spark A close-up of individual neurons:  This image shows the incredible detail of individual neurons, including their branching structures. Myelin staining:  This image shows the distribution of myelin, a fatty s...
Read more