the.com/aquaponics
Fish poop feeds plants, plants clean water, nobody does dishes.
means A food-growing system that combines raising fish with growing plants in water, where the fish waste supplies nutrients to the plants and the plants help filter the water for the fish.
from A 20th-century blend word, stitching together 'aqua' (Latin for water) and the tail end of 'hydroponics' (itself from Greek 'hydro,' water, plus 'ponos,' labor). The practice of combining fish and crops is ancient — echoes of it show up in old Aztec chinampas and traditional rice-paddy fish farming — but the snappy portmanteau name is modern, coined once hobbyists and small-scale farmers needed a single word for the closed-loop fish-and-plant setup.
- closed loop
- fish waste becomes plant fertilizer automatically
- water use
- uses roughly 90 percent less water than soil farming
- no soil needed
- plants grow in gravel or rafts, not dirt
- tilapia favorite
- tilapia thrive because they tolerate crowded, changing water