Until then, you can become acquainted with the basics of aquaponics.
Where did it all begin?
The origins of aquaponics are argueable and insecure to date, but its origins indicate two different directions. The essence of each one is remarkably reminiscent of two of today's widely used systems in modern aquaponics.
The first direction comes from Central America and dates back to the Aztecs. Other sources even mention as the originator of this system the Mayan civilization that invented this system and the Aztecs only as its modifiers. Aztecs who settled near lakes and marshes struggled to grow crops for their livelihood. This unfavorable situation was resolved by the construction of reed floaters placed on the surface of the lake. The of floaters surface was covered with mud extracted from the lake bottom. The islands emerging this way were called the quinampa. Crops then planted on them had ideal conditions for growth.
These islands were mobile for some time, and the root system of plants penetrated them into the free water column in the lake beneath them, from which they could draw dissolved nutrients important to their growth. As a result, these islands had high yields of crops, often up to four times a year.
This is a variation of today's raft aquaponics system.
The second direction comes from southern China and Thailand. A special way of growing rice on rice fields was developed here. They were was irrigated by a sophisticated system that worked on connecting two ponds and the rice field itself. On the surface of the first pond water poultry was kept in cages with incomplete bottom. Feeding, which the poultry did not consume, moved along with their excrement into the water column, where it was processed by fish. The waste produced by these fish was then taken to a lower pond where sorts of catfish tolerant to this organically polluted water were bred.
From this pond, waste and nutrient-rich water was used directly to irrigate rice fields. They were endowed with the nutrients needed to grow rice. This is basically a possible variant of the medium system, enriched with water poultry breeding.
The second variant, which also involved growing rice in flooded fields, used the water column to breed fish directly on a rice field. It only had to be adapted by appropriately placed artificially built recesses that formed a shelter for the fish. It was either in the middle of the field, in the front part of it, or in a ditch around its perimeter.
