Aquaponics’ Biggest Mistake

The modern concept of aquaponics began to take shape in the 1970s and 1980s, the term “aquaponics” itself originated in the mid 1990s when, according to James Rakocy, it was an attendee at a UVI seminar /demonstration that first coined the term. Prior to the technological advances of the 1980s, most attempts to integrate hydroponics and aquaculture had limited success.

The New Alchemists were a group of scientists, artists, and visionaries who pioneered sustainable living practices and technologies in the 1970s, including early work in aquaponics. Founded in 1969 by John Todd, Nancy Jack Todd, and William McLarney, the New Alchemy Institute aimed to create self-sufficient living systems that harmoniously integrated agriculture, aquaculture, and architecture. These early systems laid the groundwork for what would eventually be recognized as aquaponics.

The development of modern aquaponics is also attributed to German scientist Ludwig C.A. Naegel, who in 1977 published “Combined Production of Fish and Plants in Recirculating Water.”

In the mid-1980s, Dr. Mark McMurtry and Professor Doug Sanders at North Carolina State University introduced the first successful closed-loop system known as the Integrated Aqua-Vegeculture System (IAVS). This system utilized sand as both a biofilter and growing medium, creating a symbiotic environment where fish waste provided nutrients for plants, and in turn, plants cleaned the water for the fish. 

iAVs is not soilless and does not rely on inorganic/ionic solutes for plant growth, iAVs is based in organic chemistry, aka biological processes. The sand media is an active, complex and highly effective “biofilter”. The soil science involved in iAVs precludes its inclusion within the strict meaning of the term “Aquaponics.”

Concurrently, in the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. James Rakocy and his team at the University of the Virgin Islands started to initially test media based beds using gravel but they kept clogging, so around 1986, they first started to test the use of deep water culture (DWC) hydroponic grow beds in a large-scale aquaponics setting. This method, known as the “raft” system, was initially conceived a decade earlier by Ron Zweig and Bill McLarney at the New Alchemy Institute and has since become a popular approach in aquaponics.

Most people who are interested in aquaponics know that Missouri farmers Tom and Paula Speraneo popularized what is commonly termed flood and drain aquaponics.

For the uninitiated, flood and drain aquaponics in its simplest guise comprises a fish tank and one or more media (usually gravel) grow beds.  Nutrient-rich water is pumped from the fish tank into the gravel grow beds before draining back into the fish tank.  This is the most widely used aquaponics configuration in the world.

What far fewer people know is how the Speraneos came to be involved in aquaponics and where the idea for their basic flood and drain system originated.

Following the completion of his PhD dissertation at North Carolina State University, Mark R. McMurtry undertook a series of trips to showcase iAVs and its benefits for allied faculty staff, students and aquaculture industry professionals.

In December 1989, one such trip to Arkansas put Mark in contact with Tom and Paula Speraneo at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock.

A week later, Mark facilitated a 3-day interactive discussion/workshop at the Meadowcreek Project in Fox, Arkansas for the usual mix of faculty, staff, students and other interested parties – including the Speraneos.

The Speraneos returned home keen to construct an integrated aquaculture system based on what they’d learned from Mark.

As it turned out, they weren’t able to afford the sand that was central to iavs’ effectiveness, so they dug up their gravel driveway for use in their system bio-filter.

Let’s remember that the efficacy of iAVs relies on the use of sand (not gravel) so this was a significant change and one that would have serious implications for aquaponics.

Meanwhile, oblivious to the fact that his work was about to be usurped by a mistake, Mark had begun a promotional tour of sub-Saharan Africa and Middle Eastern countries.

When he returned, he became aware of the Spereaneo’s substitution of gravel for the sand and he counselled them at length about their choice – but they persisted.  This aberration would subsequently be popularised as the flood and drain aquaponics system.

This “mistake”…..subsequently to become willful ignorance…..was what best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell would come to describe as a “tipping point” – one that would have profound, negative implications for aquaponics.

The sand bio-filter is the heart of the iAVs “living machine”.  The substitution of gravel for sand impacted the efficacy of the original iAVs in several ways including:

• significant reduction in mechanical filtration capability
• significant reduction in soil organism populations  and activity
• reduced aeration of media bacteria and plant root zone
• reduced nutrient utilization and system stability
• significant reduction in fish survival, feed rate and growth
• increased capital costs with reduced fish and plant yields
• increased operating cost per unit of production

One of the key features of the iAVs design was its versatility.  The same system design could be used by a backyard farmer or an impoverished villager or a protected cropping greenhouse operator.

The first casualty of the change in media was iAVs’ commercial potential.  

The basic flood and drain system never gained commercial traction because gravel does not lend itself to the mechanisation and automation that is a feature of controlled environment agriculture.  Sand, by contrast, has been used in hydroponic greenhouse culture for decades – subject to all of the usual constraints associated with greenhouse culture.

The iAVs could be built and operated by a humble villager with some seeds and little guidance.  The basic flood and drain system, by contrast, requires a connection to the grid, a pump (or two) and ongoing access to mineral supplements.   The basic flood and drain system also requires greater skills and knowledge arising from the heightened risks that it poses.

As an aside, the Speraneos (who initially gave credit to Mark for their introduction to what was yet to become known as aquaponics), eventually used their utilisation of gravel as a point of sufficient difference (in their minds at least) to assume ownership of the concept.

This process of taking a system design and “tweaking” it (with a view to assuming ownership of the idea that underpins it), was to become a recurring theme in aquaponics.

Anyway, the Speraneos developed an information package and promoted their system through an Internet mail list (the forerunner of the discussion forum). 

In 2005, Joel Malcolm bought the Speraneo’s information kit and “tweaked” it into an Australian context.  Australia’s ABC Gardening TV program ran a segment on Malcolm’s home-based system and the basic flood and drain system enjoyed a new surge in popularity.  Regrettably, however, the “new” flood and drain system had the same basic flaw…..the media particle size.

The Speraneo model was adopted by various other kit makers and, while they “tweaked” the model too, none of them managed to grasp the toxic tipping point…..the gravel or expanded clay pebbles.

To summarize, the substitution of gravel (or clay pebbles) for sand was not just a minor detail – it was the aquaponics difference between chalk and cheese.   The iAVs is a living machine whereas the basic flood and drain system is, given a convergence of common events, a killing machine.

In terms of its filtration efficacy, Mark has characterized the use of gravel (as distinct from sand) in the biofilter as “attempting to catch BB’s with a basketball hoop.”

So, the basic flood and drain aquaponics system was/is nothing more than a major mistake.

Notwithstanding its noble bloodlines, the basic flood and drain system is actually an unfortunate mutation with nothing like the productivity, resilience and versatility of its iAVs predecessor.

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