The Integrated Aqua-Vegeculture System
What Is iAVs? iAVs stands for Integrated Aqua-Vegeculture System. It is a method of raising fish and growing vegetables together in one recirculating setup, with sand as the growing medium. How It Works Water from the fish tank is pumped…
Agriculture is a science. Horticulture is a science. Soil science, aquaculture, olericulture, microbiology -these are rigorous, peer-reviewed, empirically driven disciplines. They require years of study, a mastery of chemistry, genetics, fluid dynamics, and cellular biology. They are the foundational pillars…
The lesson is that a mature iAVs sand biofilter has buffering capacity. It can store and release nutrients across time. That gives the operator more flexibility between fish cycles and reduces the fragility often associated with systems that depend entirely…
A Proposal for the Most Scientifically Rigorous STEM Education Platform on Earth Inspired by the evidentiary record – and the irony that an industry built on pseudoreplication claims educational merit. TL;DR: Aquaponics programs have shown that integrated fish-and-plant systems can…
You can grow almost anything! There is no plant species yet found that does not thrive in iAVs, with growth rates far exceeding traditional techniques. The NCSU peer-reviewed research validated three crops across three different plant families; tomatoes, cucumbers and…
The species of fish used in iAVs is not a defining constraint of the system, the ideal fish is suited for the temperature and pH range in iAVs, and is a hardy species that eats fast, grows fast, and produces…
What Is the Standard iAVs Baseline? The standard iAVs baseline is a specific, tested configuration — covering tank size, biofilter volume and area, sand depth, irrigation schedule, fish stocking, feed rate, plant density, water chemistry, and operating guidelines — validated…
A biofilter could be rectangular, square, L-shaped, or even curved – the constraints are functional (uniform irrigation, proper drainage), not geometric. The shape of the biofilter is flexible as long as the five other requirements for an iAVs are met;
A single pipe outlet works against the way an iAVs sand bed is meant to behave. The slit drain (a thin gap running the full width of the bed at the lowest edge of the end wall) does the job…
If you’ve ever kept an aquaponic system going, you’ve met the pH problem. You fill the system, the water is fine. Two weeks later, the pH has drifted down. You add a handful of crushed shell, or a spoon of…
Intro The mainstream aquaponics literature treats iron, calcium, potassium, and trace‑element supplementation, together with regular carbonate dosing for pH control, as a standard part of system operation. iAVs (Integrated Aqua‑Vegeculture System) has, across the decade of research conducted at North…
In November 2025, a team at the United Arab Emirates University published Current technologies for nutrient recovery in aquaponic systems: a review in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. The paper presents nutrient recovery as a major unsolved problem in aquaponics,…
iAVs was created as an open-source gift to humanity. It gives people a practical way to produce clean protein and fresh food locally. We have now started translating the main iAVs manual into multiple languages. This is a major step…
M. R. McMurtry, D. C. Sanders, J. D. Cure & R. G. Hodson This paper documents a year-long greenhouse experiment designed to answer a simple question: can iAVs remove nutrients from water and maintain stable water quality without constant chemical…
This PDF is a straight aggregation of source material pulled verbatim from the first eleven pages of a Google search for “aquaponics history + McMurtry,” with no filtering, curation, or editorial selection. It contains excerpts from academic papers, university theses,…
Why Serious Growers Use Compartmented Systems it is considered better practice—especially for commercial growers – to utilize multiple, smaller compartmentalized systems (modules) rather than fewer, massive monolithic systems. This approach is grounded in risk mitigation, biological stability, engineering simplicity, and…
tl;dr; iAVs (Integrated AquaVegeculture System) is NOT “Sandponics.” iAVs is an open-source, scientifically validated system using fish waste as the sole nutrient source for plants grown in sand, which also acts as a highly efficient biofilter. This unique design leads to exceptional…
This is a guide for a standard ‘on-ground’ iAVs build with a 2000L biofilter (growbed) and a 1000L fish tank. Watch the video for a basic overview – visit the support page to ask questions about this. … stay tuned…
This is an excerpt from the iAVs Handbook. Aquaponics, the integration of aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (soilless plant cultivation), is a field attracting considerable interest. While the term’s use in peer-reviewed literature has markedly increased since the early 2000s…
Introduction The commercial-scale project established by Dr. Boone Mora, a retired veterinarian and self-described “jack-of-all-trades” (McClintic, 1994), in Bath, North Carolina, serves as a key example of the feasibility and profitability of iAVs. After attending an iAVs workshop taught by…