Concordia University
IN-1: Innovation 1

Aquaponics at the Concordia Greenhouse: Aquaponics is the loving marriage between aquaculture, or fish farming, and hydroponics, growing plants in a soilless medium. Traditionally, these techniques ask for highly controlled and managed, near-sterile environments. However, an aquaponics setup is designed to be more like an ecosystem including many forms of life, and which yields both vegetables and animal protein. The Concordia Greenhouse has hosted such a unique system since 2010. With aquaponics, little water is wasted because most of it is recirculated and purified. In general terms, the fish waste provides a nitrogen-rich fertilizer to the plants, and in turn the plants in the growing beds end up gladly cleaning the water for the fish. The details are much more intricate, where the number of beneficial relationships extends beyond just that of the fish and plants to make a system like this function. What a marvelous opportunity to study some of nature’s secrets! Our system includes: - a 350L freshwater fish tank housing goldfish, with a 100L-capacity sump tank - a 550L growing bed, with approximately 240L of expanded clay as our growing medium - a nitrification unit flood and drain irrigation plants ranging from perennials to annual vegetables, and even some tropical plants worms, gastropods, beneficial insects/arthropods, bacteria and a diversity of microscopic life forms Our goals are: - to experiment with general principles for managing a small-scale, backyard-sized aquaponics system - to examine the feasibility and limitations of such a system in the context of urban use - to provide a demonstration of this technique: information sessions are given regularly, where we go over the basics of aquaponics and share what we've learned - to build a database of environmental conditions and inputs to better: adapt the system to Northern-American climate select an appropriate fish species for our temperate climate to formulate our own fish food recipe that is less dependent on ocean-fished animals, integrates an alternative protein source (such as earthworms or insects) and can take advantage of the abundance of organic waste produced in cities.