Project: design a small aquaponics system on paper
You’re the designer now.
Fish, plants, and the crew need a home. What would you build?
Let's plan a home for fish and plants. Paper comes first.
A small system needs four main parts.
You need a fish tank, a plant box, a pump, and a way back.
The plant box is full of gravel. The crew lives on the wet stones, like in Lesson 17.
This box is called the grow bedA box of gravel where the plants grow. Water from the fish tank flows through it.
See it in the glossary.
Start small. A few fish and one grow bed give you fewer things to check.
You can always build bigger later.
Pick fish and plants that like the same water temperature.
They all share one loop of water, like you saw in Lesson 20.
Plan the wait, too. The crew needs a few weeks to grow before fish come.
You learned why in Lesson 19.
Your turn. Name the parts.
Match each name to a letter.
- A · fish tank
- B · pump
- C · pipe
- D · grow bed
- E · water back to the tank
Tap a letter, then tap its name.
Which name goes with A?
Match each name to a letter.
- A · fish tank
- B · pump
- C · pipe
- D · grow bed
- E · water back to the tank
The answer:
- A · fish tank The fish live down here.
- B · pump The pump lifts water up to the plants.
- C · pipe The pipe carries the water up and over.
- D · grow bed The plants and the crew live in the gravel.
- E · water back to the tank The water drains down, cleaner, to the fish.
Now draw your own system. Ask an adult to print the design sheet.
Draw each part, then tick it off the list.
A paper design needs no fish. If you build one with fish, an adult is in charge of their care.
Check 1 of 3
Which part lifts the water up to the plants?
Show the answer
The pump. Right. The pump pushes water up the pipe to the grow bed.
Check 2 of 3
Where does the crew live in your system?
Show the answer
On the gravel in the grow bed. Right. Lots of wet stones give the crew lots of room.
Check 3 of 3
Why start with a small system?
Show the answer
There are fewer things to check. Right. You learn how it works, then you can grow bigger.
You just learned how to plan a small aquaponics system on paper.
Next up: Water, land, and why growing methods matter.
You finished Track 3. You can print a certificate for it.
Go deeper: sizing a systemOpenClose
Growers often size a system by fish food, not by fish. The food is what becomes plant food.
One guide suggests about 40 to 50 grams of fish food a day for each square meter of leafy greens.
The same guide suggests 50 to 80 grams a day per square meter for fruiting plants such as tomatoes.
Guides for floating-raft beds suggest more, about 56 to 100 grams a day. The numbers differ, partly because systems differ.
Guides for small systems suggest at most about 10 to 20 kilograms of fish per 1,000 liters of water.
More fish than that needs extra air, more filtering, and careful testing.
Books give different numbers, so use these as a starting point and check what your own system does.
Sources
- Somerville, C., Cohen, M., Pantanella, E., Stankus, A. and Lovatelli, A. Small-scale aquaponic food production: Integrated fish and plant farming. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper No. 589. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2014. Link
- Recsetar, M., and Kelly, A. Building a Simple At-home Aquaponics System. SRAC Publication No. 5010. Southern Regional Aquaculture Center, August 2016. Link
- Mullins, C., Nerrie, B., and Sink, T. D. Principles of Small-Scale Aquaponics. SRAC Publication No. 5007. Southern Regional Aquaculture Center, September 2015. Link
- Rakocy, J. E., Masser, M. P., and Losordo, T. M. Recirculating Aquaculture Tank Production Systems: Aquaponics, Integrating Fish and Plant Culture. SRAC Publication No. 454. Southern Regional Aquaculture Center; Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service. Link
- Deer, C., Hu, B., Dunn, B. and Dusci, J. Nitrification and Maintenance in Media Bed Aquaponics. Fact sheet HLA-6729. Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, Oklahoma State University, October 2021. Link