CONVERTING BACKYARD SPLASH POOLS TO AFFORDABLE AQUAPONIC MINI-FARMS

George B. Brooks, Jr., PhD
 Mesa Community College
 1833 W Southern Ave,
 Mesa, AZ 85202
 602-363-1677
 george@nxthorizon.com
 

Urban agriculture is going mainstream in cities across the United States. For example Phoenix Arizona has written urban food systems into its General Plans and is developing an urban food strategy that includes urban agriculture for City Council consideration in 2018. In that most homes in cities like Phoenix have backyards, and the opportunity to grow healthy, sustainable, abundant and most importantly affordable food becomes significant. Aquaponics has been identified as one of a plethora of technologies that may be used to address this challenge. One significant problem that must be overcome however is that current methods of aquaponics tend to be expensive and complex limiting access to many potential users.

One powerful low cost solution to this conundrum is to convert the thousands of backyard metal-framed 10 to 12 foot splash pools that are scattered across the city to aquaponic mini-farms. Conceptually it would be far better for these pools to be growing food rather than the mosquitos that far too many of them actually are. This paper explores the effectiveness of a very simple technique where the pools are converted to DWC (Deep Water Culture) aquaponics by dropping in a food safe or fish safe liner followed by installing simplified versions of traditional aquaponic components including a fish tank and clarifier within the pool as well. This analysis of this concept looks at annual food production, types of seafood and vegetables that can be produced, construction costs and times and costs of operation. The analysis also looks at how these easy to build mini-farms may be utilized within urban-backyard settings, schools, for short-term disaster relief and food desert mitigation.