Sahib Aquaponics Hybrid Urban Growing Systems: Update on “The Zero Lot / Backyard Gardener” System
Sahib Sandwich Towers & Recirculating Wicking Beds
Last week, Sahib shared with you the prototype of the Aquaponics Hybrid urban growing system that we call “The Zero Lot / Backyard Gardener” System and introduced two growing methods, the raft system and the media beds. This week we have introduced what David Hart, one of Sahib Aquaponics key members called “Sahib Sandwich Towers” as well as recirculating wicking beds.
The idea of building the “Sahib Sandwich Towers” actually came to me last year when I tried using Nate Storey’s ZipGrow Towers. We have just been extremely busy in other Aquaponics research, preparing for the Florida and the Aquaponics Source Farm Tours, building Phase II and organizing the inaugural Aquaponics training workshops by Aquaponics Urban Gurus (December 10th & 11th 2011), that we have only got around to actually building them now.
Let me state at the very outset. Nate’s ZipGrow Towers are excellent for vertical growing in Aquaponics Systems, and I recommend them wholeheartedly. They do provide excellent vertical growing mediums and are a valuable asset in Aquaponics. Having said that, I personally I found using them is at times a little challenging. They do require considerable force in pulling out the filter media and reinserting it with planted seedling. I was not always successful in being able to achieve this task successfully on my own. Further, always looking to maximize the growing space in my extremely limited urban space, I felt that one side of Nate’s ZipGrow Tower was being underutilized. I planned creating vertical towers of different widths and lengths that would be easy to use and provide two growing areas. The vertical towers would come apart like two slices of bread or a roll to allow for the transplanting of seedlings. Once all the seedlings had been transplanted on both sides on one half of the tower, the remaining tower would be guided back over the planted tower and be ready for hanging. The vertical towers would have fixed nuts & bolts on one side and allow flexibility of growing opening by use of a wing nut on the other side. When I described this to David Hart, he immediately said “Sahib Sandwich Towers’.
The following photographs will show you how they function and enable you to see how they have been built. We will be building them in various lengths and widths and they will be available for purchase shortly.
Recirculating Wicking Bed1
We also incorporated two recirculating wicking beds in this system. They are watered manually as and when required (at present every two or three days depending upon the rain). Excess water flows back to the fish tank and is recirculated. These media beds do provide some additional filtration as well as give us the ability to grow an additional range of crops that do like to have some dry periods.
Over the course of the next few weeks, Sahib will share with you the endless possibilities of how to grow your own food locally and naturally without the use of harmful pesticides and chemical fertilizers by using these Aquaponics hybrid urban growing systems. These Aquaponics hybrid urban growing systems can be scaled to size and can be replicated. They can be modified to be operated off grid as well as expanded as the need arises. Such systems can be used to have fresh food at home, work or anywhere they are set up. They are excellent tools to use as teaching aids so that we can empower the future generation with the knowledge to grow their own food locally by natural means. Sahib’s Aquaponics hybrid urban growing systems can be the basis of feeding the family, the community as well as provide income to the urban farmer. Sahib will also share how such systems can be used in urban retail economy, both by food establishments as well as food/produce retail outlets to enable the consumer to purchase food that has been grown locally and by natural means. Food that is “live” (a new twist on the label “Fresh”), and the type recommended by most medical and health professionals as what we should be eating.
2012 Aquaponics training workshops by Aquaponics Urban Gurus
Following the successful inaugural Aquaponics training workshops by Aquaponics Urban Gurus, Sahib Aquaponics will be holding numerous Aquaponics Workshops in 2012. These Aquaponics Workshops by Aquaponics Urban Gurus are an excellent place to learn Aquaponics and be empowered to build Aquaponics systems to grow organic food for their family without using harmful pesticides or chemical fertilizers, discover the potential to create another income source as well share such knowledge with many more to help provide sustainable solutions to the world hunger epidemic.
Sahib believes that such training should be affordable so as to enable all sectors of the society to educate and empower themselves in this wonderful way of growing organic food. He also believes in smaller class sizes (not to exceed 25 participants), so that the Workshop training can be personalized as much as possible. By being a participant in such Aquaponics workshops, you will really learn and be empowered to grow your own food locally and naturally.
Here is a recent e-mail from one of the Workshop participants…
“Hello Sahib, I really enjoyed your 2 day Aquaponics class. It was very informative and practical. You made what seemed like complicated gardening into a fun learning experience. Your explanations made it easy to comprehend the principles behind Aquaponics. Seeing your Aquaponics garden and your simple systems setup demonstration, removed all doubts. Even though I am a beginner, I am confident that I can do this now. It opened up a whole new world of providing healthy "organic" food for myself and others. An excellent job done! I will recommend you classes to everyone. Rajaji “
Sahib is using the profits from Aquaponics training workshops by Aquaponics Urban Gurus to fund the development of Aquaponics for the poor hungry world villages. He has set up a separate group for this called “Feed Hunger Now” (see link below). Will you help join Sahib…can we work together in this venture? What ideas do you have to help towards this goal?
Aquaponics Hybrid Urban Growing Systems introduced by Sahib Aquaponics
Sahib Aquaponics held their inaugural Aquaponics training workshops by Aquaponics Urban Gurus on December 10th, 2011. The Aquaponics Workshops were very well received by all who participated and hopefully the world will have another few people who will build Aquaponics systems themselves, enjoy this way of life and then share such knowledge with many more to help provide sustainable solutions to the world hunger epidemic. Reflecting at the end of the workshop, the question was asked as to what constitutes “success” to Sahib?
Tim Mann of Friendly Aquaponics recently wrote…"To Sahib what the word “success” means is that most (if not ALL) of the participants in the courses go out, build and operate Aquaponics systems with the knowledge empowered that Sahib has imparted during the course to help end world hunger". Needless to say, I was very happy to read the following e-mail from one of the Workshop participants…
“Dear Sahib, Just a quick note to again thank you for an interesting and educational two days. We enjoyed it very much and our eyes were opened to a new concept. We are already trying to locate the necessary items to build a system much like the one you demonstrated. Keep up the good work! Best wishes, Clyde and Trudy Edwards”.
The Aquaponics hybrid urban growing system that Sahib demonstrated during the Aquaponics Urban Gurus Workshop was a prototype. Over the course of the next few weeks, Sahib will share with you the endless possibilities of how to grow your own food locally and naturally without the use of harmful pesticides and chemical fertilizers by using these Aquaponics hybrid urban growing systems. These Aquaponics hybrid urban growing systems can be scaled to size and can be replicated. They can be modified to be operated off grid as well as expanded as the need arises. Such systems can be used to have fresh food at home, work or anywhere they are set up. They are excellent tools to use as teaching aids so that we can empower the future generation with the knowledge to grow their own food locally by natural means. Sahib’s Aquaponics hybrid urban growing systems can be the basis of feeding the family, the community as well as provide income to the urban farmer. Sahib will also share how such systems can be used in urban retail economy, both by food establishments as well as food/produce retail outlets to enable the consumer to purchase food that has been grown locally and by natural means. Food that is “live” (a new twist on the label “Fresh”), and the type recommended by most medical and health professionals as what we should be eating.
"The Zero Lot / Backyard Gardener" System
This was the Aquaponics hybrid urban growing system that Sahib shared with the Workshop participants. We introduced two growing methods, one based upon the raft system and the other using media beds. We explained the different Medias that could be used as well as explaining them how to mix media to assist in the planting of seedlings. Workshop participants gained hands on experience in the assembly process as well as seeing the complete system operate. They were shown the beauty and functionality of using the bell siphons (we used a modified design based upon Affnan's design), to aid in the aeration process. Workshop participants were requested to assemble a similar Aquaponics hybrid urban growing system and begin to grow food for themselves. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will add vertical towers ("Sahib Sandwich Towers") over the media beds, add an NFT system as well as introduce re-circulating media beds. In due course we will add some containers to be watered on occasions by the fish effluent water. As the fish grow in size or an additional fish tank is added, we will add additional raft beds to dramatically increase the overall growing capacity. The system will be designed to have a canopy to allow shade cloth as well as cover to collect rainwater for recycling. A small solar system will also be introduced so as to be able to operate the complete system off grid. We will post photos as we build and incorporate such additions as well as provide detailed cost analysis of the system. You will be able to build them yourself with local materials or purchase them form Sahib Aquaponics.
These are the types of systems that Tim Mann was referring to when he wrote… “Sahib is dedicated to “feeding the villages” of the world, are his words for teaching the poorest people in the world how to feed themselves using Aquaponics. He is developing Aquaponics systems in Winter Park, Florida, that are the prototypes for affordable systems that will be appropriate for economically disadvantaged and developing nations.” Sahib’s Aquaponics hybrid urban growing systems will be engineered to enable them to be built completely by locally sourced materials as well as complete packages so as to meet different needs and wants. This should ensure that they are affordable systems for the economically disadvantaged, where ever the need is, thus helping provide a sustainable solution to the world hunger epidemic. Water conservation, use of green technology, reducing the carbon footprint while providing a sustainable solution to help develop ecosystems and sustainable living food jungles thus helping reduce, perhaps even eliminate hunger, are just some of the goals and end results of Sahib’s Aquaponics hybrid urban growing systems.
Sahib is accomplishing this in the most interesting place ever seen on an Aquaponics farm: in the “dead space” of a suburban strip mall in Winter Park, near Orlando in Central Florida. Recently an experienced Aquaponics gardener commented…” all the improvements that have been occurring at the "Urban Wasteland"… Now it has been transformed into a beautiful and productive "Urban Farmland"!” Tim Mann comments…” This is not only innovative on Sahib’s part, but perhaps prescient also. Although the politicians all say “we’re on the road to recovery”, there are others who talk of going back to basics and being responsible for our own food security. I can’t think of a better use for a lot of those empty strip malls we see nowadays: imagine housing the farming community in the buildings and growing the food in the empty parking lots!”
Sahib is using the profits from Aquaponics training workshops by Aquaponics Urban Gurus to fund the development of Aquaponics for the poor hungry world villages. He has set up a separate group for this called “Feed Hunger Now” (see link below). Will you help join Sahib…can we work together in this venture? What ideas do you have to help towards this goal?
God bless,
Over the course of the next few weeks, Sahib will share with you the designs and pictures of Sahib’s Aquaponics Hybrid Urban Growing Systems.
In a corner of a typical urban shopping centre tucked away in Florida sits what looks like a tiny service lane way. Except behind the timber gates is an entry into another world. Its been transformed into something else. A maze of pvc pipes run by a small pump and powered by goldfish is growing all kinds of aquaponic produce. Builder and designer Sahib Punjabi enthuses about aquaponics and especially Murray Hallam when we arrived to see his system.
Sahib reaches over and shakes Murray Hallam’s hand. “I want to teach this right around the world just like you do.” he says, “because thats the only way.”
Hybrid Systems
Sahib has a hybrid mixture of floating raft and NFT running the length of this narrow corridor. An array of tote tanks line the side of the fence and from the ceiling dangle white pots growing a variety of herbs and lettuce. Visitors to his system delight in how he has managed to use every square foot of space to grow food. Any surplus of seedlings go outside and are planted in planter boxes around the car park that people are free to take home. Sahib sees aquaponics and permaculture as an excellent way to feed the planet.
We live in a very difficult environment to grow food.” says Sahib who explains that although Florida has ideal weather for three to five months of the year, the rest of the season can either get too hot or too cold to grow food.
“Believe it or not we get frosts here and it can also get very wet here.” he says. “The soil is a challenge because its sand – most of it.”
Sahib has also tried organic soil gardening but abandoned this method after experiencing soil contamination during heavy rainfall.
So Sahib turned to other methods of growing fresh food and discovered aquaponics. His passion turned into studying everything he could find on the subject.
“My wife said – you’re crazy!” he laughs, but the desire to learn all he could only drove him on. “I felt like I taught myself a (university) degree in this subject!”
Sahibs choice of fish to use in aquaponics is Koi because they are trouble free and easy to grow. His entire system is powered by a tiny 60 Watt submersible pump.
“This is something I learnt from Murray Hallam.” he says. “I’m using only one third of that pump’s capacity. Fifty percent of the pump’s water, I’m feeding back into the 1000 gallon fish tank, so that’s creating some aeration.”
Good aeration is critical to supply adequate oxygen flow in keeping your fish alive. Water is pumped the length of the yard to header tanks where the water is trickled back through the network of nft pipes and floating raft beds, returning back to the main fish tank completing the cycle.
Four Systems powered by one pump!
This one pump actually supports four different types of aquaponics systems. Floating raft, NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) in those long pvc pipes, a wicking bed media system which allows Sahib to grow tomatoes, peppers and flowers in them and finally his vertical hanging pots system. By mixing his systems, Sahib feels he can take advantage of his fish solids to directly feed his wicking bed system and the heavier feeding plants like tomatoes that require more nutrient.
And yet even in this small space, Sahib feels he can add more hanging planters and incorporate other methods of growing food. Outside his main fish tank he has coco coir stuffed into concrete blocks so he can manually divert water to this system to grow plants outside his system like strawberries.
“In derelict space I have tried to create something that can feed a whole bunch of people.” he says.
Sahib looks back at his system and smiles, “Its not commercial – but it could be if I wanted it to be.”
Recirculating farms are a socially responsible farming method and business: they support the use of renewable energy, recycle water and waste, and provide local food, (and can do it without chemical pesticides). They also can create green jobs. This highlights how farms are not only increasingly supplying restaurants and grocery stores with food, but also are helping to feed the homeless, and others that don’t have access to fresh, healthy food around the world.
Recirculating farms are land-based farms that use clean, recycled water in place of soil to grow plants (hydroponics), fish (aquaculture) or plants and fish together (aquaponics) in a contained system.
Innovator Martin Wiggett, founder and president of Stealth Hydro, and his wife Julie, are using hydroponic technology to have a positive social impact and feed hungry people all over the world. They support organizations such as Hydro for Hunger and Growing Hope. The Hydro for Hunger program focuses on raising awareness about global food shortages. Growing Hope encourages communities to be self-sufficient.
These are just a few examples of how recirculating farms are changing the world. Many farmers who embrace this method of growing food are also focusing on using it to have a positive impact for people and our planet. I encourage you to learn more about recirculating farms to see how they can help you and your community – and join in the good food revolution!
The United States needs better food systems, and it needs more jobs. Aquaponics, a relatively new type of urban food production model, can give us both—sustainable food and green jobs.
Currently, the U.S. imports about 85 percent of our seafood, a large fraction of which is produced in overseas fish farms, by a process called aquaculture. Another 10 percent is “domestic wild catch,” which is made up of seafood caught by U.S. fishermen (NOAA). The remaining 5 percent comes from U.S. aquaculture. As global wild catch declines, aquaculture is steadily increasing as a viable replacement, although some aquaculture operations are criticized for being sited in open water or rivers, where fish escapes, exchange of fish diseases between farmed and wild fish, and environmental pollution are of concern.
But there is a different approach to aquaculture that addresses many of these concerns: aquaponics. Aquaponics is typically land-based, closed-system farming that is designed with the principles of agroecology in mind— fish species and vegetable crops are raised together in harmony— because fish waste serves as liquid plant fertilizer and plants strip the water of chemicals that are harmful to fish.
Agroecology, a method for integrating biological systems into agriculture, is widely recognized as a potential solution for increasing farm productivity and environmental sustainability of agriculture. Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, is strongly in favor of the agroecology approach, in which farmers create “complex farming systems that replicate the complexities of nature.”
Today, fish such as tilapia, yellow perch, blue gill, and catfish are being raised in aquaponics systems in urban settings across the U.S.
Aquaponics systems recycle as much as 99 percent of their water though the system using biologically inspired models. Farmers use a combination of physical treatment methods to remove fish waste, such as gravel bed or clarifiers, and biological treatment using edible plants as biofilters and bacteria as denitrifiers to clean the water. As a side benefit, the leafy greens and other crops raised in aquaponics make for a tasty pairing with broiled, baked or grilled fish.
The aquaponics movement is in need of leadership after Jim Rakocy, a professor at the University of the Virgin Islands and champion for aquaculture, recently retired in 2010. Fortunately, there is a new group, Recirculating Farms Coalition (RFC), poised to organize the movement. The RFC has as its aim to “establish(es) a healthy, natural, and community-based way to grow fresh food… [and] to motivate change and build a movement calling for local, healthy, sustainable food” [from RFC website].
The director of RFC, Marianne Cufone, explained in a press release, “The United States is in one of its worst economic situations ever. We need change, now. Building recirculating farms will help address the food and job crises by empowering communities to create new jobs growing their own food, in a way that is healthy for both us and our planet.”
Urban fish farms both large and small are attracting attention for their potential to impact local communities. Walmart recently announced a $1 million dollar grant to Growing Power, a Milwaukee-based recirculating aquaponics farm and nonprofit organization. Other, less well-known operations that RFC spotlighted recently are also making an impact in their local communities. At his farm, which is tucked behind a strip mall in Winter Park, Florida, Sahib Punjabi raises fresh produce, ornamental fish, and uses the facility as a teaching center (image).
Aquaponics strikes me as a great solution for rebalancing the seafood trade deficit in the United States. I hope that organizations such as RFC will be successful in inspiring investments in aquaponics and other agro-ecological models for aquaculture.
The idea of building the “Sahib Sandwich Towers” actually came to me last year when I tried using Nate Storey’s ZipGrow Towers. We have just been extremely busy in other Aquaponics research, preparing for the Florida and the Aquaponics Source Farm Tours, building Phase II and organizing the inaugural Aquaponics training workshops by Aquaponics Urban Gurus (December 10th & 11th 2011), that we have only got around to actually building them now.
Dave Love
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