Aquaponic Farming the Easy Way

aquaponic farming

Our Humble Beginnings

Abundant Harvest was launched in 2010 on two acres of land donated by Restoration Church, with a “zero” dollar budget and with materials donated by the community. We were able to grow and distribute to the low-income, senior and military in the community 2,264 lbs. of healthy fresh produce. We received 550 volunteer hours from several community organizations in the greater Colorado Springs/Fountain area to realize this goal.

The Greenhouse

Abundant Harvest built a prototype “hoop house” style greenhouse to demonstrate how efficient a closed-loop technique for producing fish and vegetables can be using aquaponics. We more than doubled our food production but found that the prototype greenhouse has serious limitations. The building is poorly ventilated and insulated, making it unsuitable when temperatures are below freezing for much of the winter and soar to 120 degrees in the summer.
AHA prototype greenhouse

Abundant Harvest volunteers building a “hoop house”

The good news is that there is a development plan to build an energy-efficient 4000 sq. ft. aquaponics facility for growing vegetables, herbs, and fish, using up to 80% less water compared to traditional farming. Our mission    will continue to include the donation of 50% of harvested produce and fish to needy families in the community through charitable food distributors. AHA has chosen Sprung Greenhouse Structures. They offer many advantages over typical greenhouse structures, including weight, durability, opacity, height and air-tightness. The fiberglass insulation system in Sprung fabric structures outperforms other types of construction, resulting in less environmental impact and lower operating costs. Additionally, there is virtually no air leakage, thanks to the unique design and performance insulation. sprung greenhouses Currently, Sprung structures are utilized in hundreds of different applications, in over 100 countries, for some of the world’s leading organizations. With well over 12,000 structures in use, Sprung continues to expand the vision established by the company roughly 130 years ago.

Planting the seeds in your aquaponic garden is much easier than putting them in the ground. You just have to put them on a netting pot and… this is it! Then you just have to wait for them to start vegetating and grow. However, there is one little aspect you must know before placing the seeds and that is – the ideal moment when the seeds should be planted.

Many people buy the fish, place them in the tank and in the same day they also place the seeds in the pots. This is by far the worst way of approaching aquaponics as the seeds, even though will grow and develop up to a certain point, they will die in a matter of days after they finish their own supplies if there are no nutrients in the water on which they can feed.

Thus, the perfect moment to place the seeds in the pots is when the fish excrements have turned into nutrients. The process through which you can get nutrients for your plants is quite simple. After you place the fish into the tanks, they will start freeing excrements into the water. Because the excrements contain ammonia, they are highly toxic for the fish. However, do not worry about that, as this issue is solved by nature itself. There are bacteria which transform the ammonia into nitrites and then into nitrates. In order for your plants to grow you need nitrates, so once the process of decomposing and transforming ammonia is over, the water will be ready to support the plant seeds.

The entire process can take up to 3 months time, where you should not place any type of seeds in the pots as they will certainly die. There are also ways to speed up the process by inserting nitrates into the water before the fish excrements can transform. However, many people do not like to interfere in nature’s way. However, no matter what way you choose, it is recommended to watch the amount of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates from the water, so that you can always know the quality of your water for both your fish and your vegetables.

Planting the seeds at the right time is essential if you want good crops and healthy fish, so check the quality of your water permanently, before and after planting. It is the only way through which you can get good crops.

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