Food/Aquaponics

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The New Alchemy Institute did a lot of research into aquaculture - small scale production of fish for eating. They found that a fish tank five feet in diameter and five feet tall can produce forty pounds of fish a year. (Meaning that you could have fish for dinner twice a week.) They perfected the method for growing tilapia, catfish or shrimp and even developed computer algorithms which could accurately predict the yield of fish based on variables [1].

Ron Zweig developed a method in which the fish tank doubles as a source of hydroponic vegetables. Vegetables are grown on the surface of the pond so that their roots dangle into the water; the fish fertilize the plants, the plants clean the water, and both can be eaten by humans. This symbiotic growth of aquatic animals and hydroponic plants became known as aquaponics 11px-Wikipedia_logo.jpg. Aquaponics is a sustainable and extremely resource-efficient method of food production, requiring no input but sunlight.

Algae could also be grown on the surface of the water, providing a source of food for the fish so that they would not require feeding. Many species of algae are also edible by humans.