Aquaponics in western virginina univerrsity

Ravi Kiran JPAdmission No. 2012JE0663

Dept. Of Environmental Science & Engineering

Indian School of Mines (ISM), [email protected] ,

[email protected]

Seminar ESC16405

Dept. Of Environmental Science and Engineering

Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, India.Topic - Scaling aquaponic

systems: Balancing plant uptake with fish outputKaren M. Buzby∗, Lian-

Shin LinDepartment of Civil and Environmental

Engineering West Virginia University, United States

Aquaponics = Aquaculture + Hydroponics

A sustainable system

One should know that...!!

Why Aquaponics: Top TEN reasons

1. Saving water – aquaponics uses 98% less water than traditional farming. Once you fill your system, it is rare that you need to refill it.

2. Ground pests are no longer an issue.3. No hand weeding 4. Aquaponics is organic. No pesticides, no oils, no soaps…

nothing.5. Plants grown faster. There is literature that says that plants

will grow twice as fast.6. You can grow a 10 times as many plants in the same

amount of space because of the floating raft system.7. Aquaponics is a two-source income.8. Aquaponics uses 70% less energy than traditional farming

practices.9. You can grow with aquaponics on any scale.10.  It is an above ground system.

Contd..Growing Indoors• Can be used underground and indoors• Artificial lighting• May be a life-saviour in post-apocalyptic

scenarios• The Great Tennessee Pot Cave drug bust

Green all around!

Mechanism involved

• In an aquaponic system, effluent containing nutrients generated through fish rearing is passed through the rooting zone of plants where it provides a nutrient source.

• The plants use the nutrients to support growth and, depending on the plant chosen, can represent an additional commodity for the fish farmer.

• Nutrient uptake and sequestration in plant biomass removes nutrients from the effluent thereby improving water quality.

Objectives

• A simple new method to size aquaponic systems is described.

• Plant crops differ in dissolved inorganic N species preference and nutrient removal capacity.

• Nutrient removal variable over cropping interval with highest rates when plants are young.

Contd..

• To be most effective the aquaponics system must be sized correctly with the optimum balance between nutrient production from fish culture and nutrient uptake by the plant component.

Experiments done!!

• New method for nutrient removal via isolation of two components

• Estimate retention time to achieve water quality goals

• Two experiments to evaluate the method 1. Removal capabilities of two cultivars 2. Lettuce over entire cropping period

Species used in aquaponic unit

1.Nasturtium 2. Lettuce & 3.Trout

Site Description

Components of site Water source An Artesian Spring

Rate of water flow 1325 L/min approx.

pH 6.9

Specific conductance 161

TAN Not detectable

Nitrate Avg. 0.28 mg/L

Phosphate Avg. 0.15 mg/L

Tail box submerged pump 0.5 hp

Green House 7.9 * 14.6 m

Exhaust Fans East-West direction

Aquaponic Channels 38cm wide * 2.44m long

Lumite mesh screening 32* 32 mm

Green house Steel supports covering with polyethylene double films (polycarbonate end walls)

Process flow

Sample Analysis

On site figures from West Virginia university

Results

Table indicating nutrient removal in %

-Retention time and remove target N or P (Design criteria)

Nasturtium Lettuce Nutrient Removal

89 81 TAN

93 Concentrations rose Nitrate

63 37 Phosphate

80 48 Inorganic N

Thumb rule generated

• 1.6 h would be required to remove 50% DIN if nasturtium were grown as compared with 4.2h to achieve same result if lettuce were grown.

Contd..

• These results illustrate that the crop chosen can have a considerable impact on the removal of nutrients.

• Nasturtium removed nutrients faster, removed both TAN and nitrate, and reduced effluent nutrient concentrations to a greater degree.

• Faster removal, i.e.an increased uptake rate, indicates that a shorter retention time is necessary to achieve the same final concentration than would be required if a crop such as lettuce with slower removal is grown.

• If a crop with a relatively high removal rate is grown in a system designed for crops with lower removal rates, plants, especially.

• Increased retention time, either through the use of longer channels or a slower influent velocity would only decrease plant growth without additional removal.

• Effect of Plant age on Nutrient removal

Is something wrong?

• The lack of nitrate removal by lettuce was surprising as nitrate removal by lettuce has been documented in other aquaponic systems • (Rakocy et al., 1993;Lennard and

Leonard, 2006) as well as hydroponic systems (Savvaset al., 2006).

Conclusions

1. Source water Quality will play a greater role in nutrient removal dynamics in a flow through system.

2. Quick & easy method to acquire necessary data.

3. Straight forward investigation of multiple crops and cropping system under the same environmental conditions

4. Both Po4 removal is time taking by both the species used in the experiments

References

• Karen M. Buzby & Lian-Shin Lin, “Scaling aquaponic systems: Balancing plant uptake with fish output”, published in Elsevier Journal under Aqua-cultural Engineering, US , 2014.

• http://aquaculture.davis.wvu.edu/ , • http://smallfarms.ifas.ufl.edu/crops/aqua

ponics/- West Virginia University- World Aquaponics forum

Japan plant factories: future food

“My Grandfather used to say that once in your life you may need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, and a preacher but every day all three times a day you

need a FARMER.”