US: Bioponica breaks ground with its first commercial aquaponic

Come April, see great things grow in the English Avenue and Vine City area of West Atlanta. The 20’ foot x 36’ foot greenhouse and Biogarden layout pictured here is a slightly modified rendering of the project underway with the City of Refuge in West Atlanta. The non profit, state-of-the-art women and children’s shelter, commissioned the project, in part for their interests in organic food production, sustainable agriculture, training and education. There is a diversity of life that plays out in this soilless farming ecosystem.

Bio Feed Bags™ placed in the tanks of each module, will contain food, grass and other nutrient sources plus anaerobic microbes that decompose the waste. Fresh discarded plant matter provides vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids and complex carbohydrates to the plants through series of life cycles. The nutrients are diffused through the mesh bags whereupon they are recycled by aerobic microbes which remove cloudiness and release inorganic molecules and CO2 into the water.

Microbes themselves are teaming in our manufactured natural ecosystems. In the Bio-Incubator, they are eaten by fish or they die and decompose to release nutrients for another cycle. Free flowing, root ready, inorganic nutrients are bacterial respiration byproducts of waste. Their CO2 release plus nutrients can be augmented to grow duckweed and algae, plus zooplankton and semi-aquatic larvae, as a feed for omnivores and herbivores such as tilapia, goldfish, crawfish, shrimp and clams.

Above the tanks where these microbial cycles take place, CO2 from the breakdown is consumed by the plants on the vertical grow beds. There is much need for atmospheric CO2 in greenhouse gardening. The cost to bring fresh carbon dioxide into the greenhouse is typically high as rapid cycle air exchanges are necessary for top plant growth performance. When tanks release CO2 below the beds, there is a great benefit and cost savings by the colonizing of bacterial microbes approximate to growing areas.

Additional fish feed is derived from submerged Bio Feed Bags™ developed and formulated at Bioponica. This consists of a variety of specially blended, fresh and partially fermented, organic, vegetative matter. No manufactured fish feed is required when using this “bioponic” approach.

The flooding cycle of soilless grow beds brings nutrient rich, pond-like, water to the plants. The digested, decomposed and recycled plant matter provides a green, natural fertilizer to plants. What is remarkable is that this all takes place with very little human interaction. No manufactured or composted fertilizers are required, when this closed loop process is employed.

By recycling nutrients with the support of living aquatic ecosystems, Bioponica’s systems or simply its nature-hosting process, gives one and all immediate access to organic, sustainable farming with the least bit of effort. All of this, thanks to the microbes.

For more information: www.bioponica.net