Mars Challenger V1.0 > MCO Early Discussions

Aquaponics – Collaboration of fish and plants - idea

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Marco2001:

Aquaponics – Collaboration of fish and plants
( Proposal of combining fish tanks and plant bins to make closed-circle aquaponics for the plants and fish. Aquaponics uses no additional water, fertiliser or space )




--- Quote ---Aquaponics is the integration of fish and hydroponic plant production in a circular system,
where nutrient-rich water is removed from the fish tank to grow plants, which, once cleansed by the plants,
reticulates back to the fish culture where the cycle begins again.
--- End quote ---




--- Quote ---Aquaponic systems thus provide a closed resource loop that conserves both organic matter and water.
They are designed for both commercial and domestic use existing at different scales and
are able to provide enough fresh fish and greens to feed a family or more each year.
Examples of aquaponic production in Melbourne include the semi-commercial trial aquaponic system at
CERES Community Environment Park and various household systems able which are purchased from various suppliers.

To find out more about aquaponics visit the CERES website at www.ceres.org.au or Aquaponics Solutions at www.aquaponic.com.au.
--- End quote ---
This is from “Social Innovations in Victorian Food Systems”, case studies by Ferne Edwards.
http://www.sustainablemelbourne.com/models/aquaponics-collaboration-of-fish-and-greens/

You can reed more about Aquaponics on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics




--- Quote ---Aquaponics is aquaculture (the growing of fish) and hydroponics (raising plants without soil) put together. The fish provide nutrients for the bacteria, the bacteria provide food for the plants and the plants clean the water for the fish. It is an old system first engineered by Aztecs in their floating gardens. Although it has ancient roots, aquaponics is just starting to find its place in commercial agriculture.

If we grew only plants or only fish, it would be difficult to not give off some waste products into the environment. By growing both together, almost no waste products need to leave the system. Aquaponics also uses very little water because the water can be used over and over again by the fish and plants.
--- End quote ---
http://www.floatinggardens.ca/why-aquaponics.php
Aquaponics diagram: http://www.floatinggardens.ca/cutenews/data/upimages/aquaponics.gif

LINK: http://www.growshop.com/hydroponic-systems/aeroponics/aquaponics-revisited.html
LINK 2: http://theaquaponicsource.com/hydroponics-improved.php
LINK 3: http://hort201.tamu.edu/YouthAdventureProgram/Aquaponics/AquaponicsSystem.html
There are about couple houndrets of links about aquaponics. No sense is posting more of them here.

I found obout couple of houndrets films about aquaponics on youtube...I reely don't know which one is the best...so go ahead and check them :-)
This is a short clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUHnU2zGYrg&feature=related




The way I see it - it's perfect for Mars Colony.
Mainly I was thinking that you wouldn't need all that soil that you MUST brought from earth. Water from fish tanks would be enought.
Plant tray would be above of the fish tank - the plants would spread their roots at the fish tank. In most of the articles I've read they uses separate bins for plants and fish and then transfer the water between them. As you can see - I posted the last 3 pictures which use fish tank as the hydroponic bin for plants - so I guess it's possible to make it that way - and it would be desired on mars colony.
The plants grown there would never need fertilizer or water. They would grow idealy, without your intervention (besides the fact, that you have to seed them and harvest them).
So what about the other plant bins?
I think that "nothing". There is a limit at which plants and fish can coexists one-to-another. Fish tank can only support few plants and the same goes for plants - thay can only support one tank. The rest of the plants would be grown normally - with the use of water and fertilizer.
But...since I'am at this topic...I strongly suggest to change the SOIL-cultivation from the bins to HYDROPONIC. Hydroponics has it's obvious advantages...but that's not all! In order to grow few plants you would need to send to mars a few tons of soil! That's crazy!
It's easier to simply use hydroponics. The required water doesn't even need to be send to mars as a "water"...you can send hydrogen (which is like 17 times lighter than water itself?) and synthesize it in-situ. Morover - water in MCO can be drilled-out since the hyperia-base was estabilished on a water-spot. Water in hydroponics can be used-over and over many times, bofore you need to add new one. It holds fertilizer longer, and you can determine what does the plants consume.

Comming back to the topic...
Aquaponics has a few nice features which could be implemented in MCO.
Firstly - it uses power for heating water, pumping water and filtrating water. If the base would have a power-crysis for too long, the fish would start to die. The plant would be intact for a long time, but they would stop growing as you would stop giving them fertilizer.
Secondly - since the fish needs the plants for nutrient recuperation, in order to start a fish colony you need to fisrtly start a plant colony there. But that's not all!
What would happen if you would harvest all the plants away at the same time? The fish would be dead very quickly.
Thirdly - if the water-pump would breake and would not be repaired, both fish and plants would start to die.
Fourthly - the speed of growth both for fish and plants would be corelated. You would need to harvest them about the same time (look at one of the films I posted about that). If you would harvest one of the plants or some of the fish, the other one would suffer.
Fiftly - since the plant bin would be on top of the fish tank there is no need to make the animation of fish swiming from the above. I think some fish needs at least a little light to grow, and becouse of that - the sides of the fish tank shoud be transparent. That would give the player a possibility to "check-on" the state of the fish and plant roots. I think that animating only the sides of the fish tank with swiming fishes is easier (at least - that's what I imagine).

Mecanico:
Good job, Marco:)
What I can add more for in game. There should be few sensors in everyone tanks: temperature, pH, oxidation level. Player have to check once for some time if readings are good or bad and react (adjusting temperature, flow rate, adding some emergency chemicals for compensating pH or oxidation). Even more, if something is wrong with our tank, player can take a sample of water/fish/plant to bio-lab and check if there is everything OK with bacteria, no foreign bacterias, etc. Findings can be profitable:)

profit004:
I have to admit that is really cool,

Just a side note however: not all soil will need to be brought in from earth, as  far as I can tell plants will grow quite well in the decomposing leftovers from other plants, so after a while there should be enough plant, processing (fish guts and bits of plants we don't eat) and human waste material that has composted to grow plants in.   Perhaps some martian soil could even be mixed in... Although I am thinking Styrofoam would be a more likely candidate.   Soil based agriculture would be far less energy intensive than hydroponic, so I am thinking it would be preferred.   Of course that would present a chicken egg scenario so yes, there will have to be some hydroponic agriculture unless this is like the second base on mars and compost soil can be brought in from the first base.

thedubman:
Great idea!

As for soil, maybe collecting some of the Mars soil and sterilizing, altering PH etc could work? I think I heard that it would be possible to use some parts of the martian soil for growing, would make for a nice side mission- finding decent soil (sample soils, test samples add or remove chemicals to create a growable soil- go to a good spot, excavate soils, return and treat for use in planters)

profit004:

--- Quote from: thedubman on November 11, 2010, 12:28:49 PM ---Great idea!

As for soil, maybe collecting some of the Mars soil and sterilizing, altering PH etc could work? I think I heard that it would be possible to use some parts of the martian soil for growing, would make for a nice side mission- finding decent soil (sample soils, test samples add or remove chemicals to create a growable soil- go to a good spot, excavate soils, return and treat for use in planters)

--- End quote ---

I can assure you nothing we can do will sterilize the soil more than being blasted by solar radiation and massive temperature swings found on mars =p   But yeah, I would have to believe that martian soil has at least some of the requirements for plant growth, and probably just 1 or 2 compounds that need to be removed in order for earth plants to grow in it when nutrients are added.

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