Students in Somerset will be learning how to create and manage an aquaponic system as a sustainable way of growing food thanks to a specially-built mobile demonstration unit created by HydroGarden.

Bridgwater College’s team leader for Horticulture & Countryside Management, Nigel Cox, attended BAQUA’s (British Aquaponic Association) national conference in August held at Bicton Earth Training Academy in Devon. During one of the sessions, he expressed the need for a small mobile aquaponics system that he could transport to schools, as well as use at the College’s Cannington Centre, a specialist college for land-based education.

Fellow conference attendee, Stephen Fry, commercial sales manager for hydroponic and aquaponics innovators, HydroGarden, based in Coventry, responded by creating a mini version of the company’s existing FishPlant system, which can easily be transported in a car and assembled in minutes. 

Aquaponics works by using the waste created by fish to feed plants via a filtering system that constantly recycles the water. The secret to success lies in the presence of microbes which convert the fish waste into usable plant nutrients. The College’s new mini system is fully functional and suitable for gold fish. It comprises a 200 litre base tank and an 80 litre grow bed, and can grow up to 15 salad plants at a time, including lettuce and herb varieties.  The College already has a full-size aquaponic system which the fish can be transferred to and from as required.

Stephen said,

“I was attending the BAQUA conference when Nigel spoke about how what he really needed to get the message out about the benefits of aquaponics, was a mobile system that he could use during his teaching sessions, both at the College and at local schools.

“So on returning to Coventry, I challenged our engineers with devising a mini version of our existing system, FishPlant. FishPlant systems are already being used in colleges and schools around the country to great effect, both as a learning tool and as a means of growing produce that is then used in other areas such as in the teaching kitchens and restaurants.

“The mini FishPlant system the team came up with, is small enough to be portable while still clearly demonstrating how aquaponics works. In comparison, our FishPlant Family system, which can be used as single self-contained unit for home use or as one component of a modular system for larger scale use, has a 300 litre fish tank.  There’s also a FishPlant Production system which has an 800 litre tank.” 

Nigel Cox spoke of his delight at having a system he can use during his demonstrations and teaching sessions all over the county,

“The mini version that HydroGarden has created for us is ideal. It demonstrates how aquaponics works in real life. This always helps students’ understanding and prompts real interest and questions in a way that pure theoretical learning can’t.

“I really appreciate the effort that HydroGarden has put into creating a tailored solution for us, and hope that other colleges will follow suit in helping to get key messages about sustainable farming methods out to our next generation of farmers.  As an industry, we need to look to utilising new and innovative methods if we are to meet the challenge of keeping food production in line with demand, and aquaponics may be one part of the solution.” 

For more information about HydroGarden’s range of hydroponic and aquaponic products visit www.fishplant.co.uk and www.hydrogarden.com.