Aquaponics testing Standards

benmacnab

Hey!

I firstly put this topic into aquaponics system locations but I think that it is more relevant maybe for the commercial growers out there who have access to better testing equipment.

Hi my name is Ben and I am new to this forum. I have a question to all of the community out there. Is there any baseline testing standards that are in circulation for Aquaponics? The reason that I ask is that I am actually about to start writing a thesis on Aquaponics and have not yet found any specific document that states baseline testing conditions that should be formed in order to make data collected and collated in experiments more relevant and more easily replicable.

ps I am not coming to this forum with no knowledge on the topic. I currently have an operational system that we are conducting experiments on; 1000 litres of water in circulation with dwc and nft currently in operation.

I also posted this to a reply

Ok yes I suppose that I am coming from the perspective of having access to reasonably reliable testing devices that are not exactly affordable or justifiable to the average hobbyist doing aquaponics; pH meter, EC meter, spectrometer, turbidity, DO, ORP etc that are all calibrated using lab STP's.

What I was thinking that could be formulated would be a set of baseline levels and ranges for things such as water temperature, Air temperature and humidity, pH, nitrates, phosphorous, potassium, iron, system maturation time etc. This document would be formed with the consensus of the Aquaponics community and could be used by people conducting research to make this industry a bit more legitimate, not that it isn't it is just hard to get people to accept it and implement policy to make the creation of larger systems easier; I am coming from the perspective that here in Finland it is quite hard to actually start to grow aquaponically on a commercial basis. We currently need to meet 27 laws and regulations in order to even think about growing commercially.

An example of this would be say I'm conducting an experiment with the effect of Air applied to the root zone in DWC. If my water temperature is low, say 14, I will have a higher dissolved oxygen concentration than I would have at say at 20 all good. But if I am studying how the plants grow 20 would be a better temperature than 14 as the nitrification reactions happens more efficiently at 20 than it does 14. My results would be totally different and it would be hard to compare them. If I had a base line of Say 18 degrees water temperature, 10-30 degrees air temperature, pH of 6,3 to say 7, nitrate levels of a minimum of say 10ppm etc it would be far easier to create replicable results which would validate data more. When writing a paper you could say in the abstract that growing conditions were following aquaponics associations minimum baseline standards. Then I would know you have a certain range pH, water temperature, air temperature, nitrate levels etc whatever is deemed to be the most valid and relevant in order to study aquaponics.

Maybe I'm asking the wrong forum on this one and in that case I apologise for wasting anyones time. I love aquaponics I'm super inspired by it and so glad that other people are too.

Thanks in advance to anyone replying to me

ptom012

I am also new aquaponics and have a similar system to yours but a couple of extra things that spring to mind are. Size and Breed of fish, type of grow media, depth of grow bed, time of year or type of grow light would also play a large part. Also the grow bed acts as a heat sync so ambient temperature gets transfered to water temperature very quickly.

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kingair

Keep us posted

earthbound

I think most people just try and grow with the conditions they have and there are just way to many variables across the world, and within AP, to create a 'standard' as such.. :dontknow:

Global Gardener

I think that Earthbound has hit the nail on the head. To quote an article from the US Southern Regional Aquaculture Center, the interrelationships among the many variables in water quality are "complex and poorly understood," even in that older and better established field. Much like in the soil matrix, interactions between pH, alkalinity, temperature, salinity and electrical conductivity, organic matter, microorganisms, DO, carbon dioxide, nitrogen compounds, various ions, intakes and exudates of plants and animals, plus exchanges between substrates, solution and atmosphere create an awesomely dynamic system which can be very difficult to replicate or define. Partly for this reason, there is not even a widely agreed upon scientific definition for the word "soil."
Having said all this, we as aquaponicians undoubtedly need people like you, Benmacnab, who can bring to bear the knowledge, persistence and scientific rigor required to help uncloud this still murky discipline. So I salute you sir, and encourage you to be one of those intrepid pioneers who blazes a trail of solid data for us intellectually lazy laymen (and semi-professionals) to tread upon in the quest to build our own harmoniously functioning aquaponic systems, with which to feed and fascinate the general public.
Check out the work of AP studs like Dr. James Rakocy and Dr. Lennard Wilson, and be the standard maker. And please keep us posted.

GurkanYeniceri

Contact with Dr. Wilson Lennard at http://www.aquaponic.com.au

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