2022 Annual Meeting
A Theoretical and Computational Model for Aquaponics Systems
Aquaponics is a sustainable farming technique combining aquaculture with hydroponic plant growth. This system has the potential to decrease artificial fertilizer use and treat aquaculture waste by using a microbial bioreactor to convert ammonia in fish waste into nitrate and nitrite for plant growth. Currently, lack of knowledge of optimal operating conditions for aquaponics systems prevents scaleup and is further complicated by the complexity of integrating the hydroponic and aquaculture systems across multiple components. This project looks to address this lack of knowledge through the development of a theoretical and computational model of the nutrient cycling and component growth in the aquaponics system. A visual-conceptual model of the three main components in the aquaponics system, the plant bed, the fish tank, and the microbial bioreactor, has been developed. Additionally, the matrix framework from the Activated Sludge Model used in the wastewater treatment field has been applied to each component of the system. This matrix framework includes both stoichiometric and kinetic information about each process occurring in the system. By the time of the conference, the matrix framework will be populated with specific stoichiometric and kinetic information to model fish, plant, and microbe growth, as well as nutrient cycling. In the future, these equations will be translated into BioWin (EnviroSim Associates Ltd., Hamilton, Ontario), a computational modeling software traditionally used in the wastewater treatment area, allowing the user to simulate the performance of the aquaponics system under different conditions. Overall, this conceptual and computational model will facilitate research in the aquaponics field, allowing for pre-experimental simulations to be run under different conditions to decrease the number of long and expensive experiments needed to gain information on the system. The model may also be applied towards evaluating aquaponics from an environmental impact and profitability standpoint. In sum, the development of a computational and theoretical aquaponics model is important to facilitate scale-up of this sustainable farming technique, addressing environmental and food-security issues associated with traditional farming and aquaculture practices.