Building Aquaponic Systems Using Locally Available Materials and Comparison of Productivity between Two Different Systems

Abstract

The main goal of this research was to design aquaponic system with recycled materials that is environment-friendly as well as design with commercial products to compare vegetable and fish production between the two systems. Through this research we aim to encourage people to produce organic and nutritious food by their own instead of buying from market. Auaponic help to grow 100% organic vegetables that are essential for our health. The system was design in one of the student residential building on the rooftop to avoid external disturbances to the study. The data collection of production was done every 7 days interval starting from September – December, 2016. The fish was feed with commercial floating feed and 5% of their body weight, 3% in the morning and 2% in the evening. The height of five random vegetable was measured every week from each tub to determine their growth. Likewise, five fishes were caught from each tank to measure their weight after 7 days. But weight of vegetable and length of the tilapia was measured once in the beginning and at the end. The result reveals that the growth of both tilapia and vegetable (Chinese cabbage) has increase during the study period of 90 days. The mean weight of tilapia was 51.7 to 77.8; length has increased from 4.67 to 33.5cm in the end of the study period (week0-week4). Similarly, mean height of vegetable from initial to final week was 54.8 to 76.4cm and weight has increased from 38.83 to 350g. However, there were few external and internal factors affecting the growth of both tilapia and vegetables that cause slight alteration in result but the overall result shows significant growth in both tilapia and vegetable and commercial system has better growth as compared to recycle system. Since, the recycle system was run manually, whereas commercial was run by automatic pump and filtration.