RECIRCULATING AQUAPONICS USING SHRIMP, TILAPIA AND VEGETABLES IN A HYBRID SYSTEM

Carlos León*
 
BOFISH
 Guadalajara, Mexico. 45600
 carlos@acuaponia.com
 

Recirculating Systems have become more popular in aquaculture installations due to a lack of resources available, and now days also because of the production cost that these resources have increased.  Such resources are: Water, Space, Energy, Feed and Waste. Shrimp production has suffered a sanitary problem over the past years due to flow-through systems used worldwide.  Recirculating Systems have become more popular in order to increase the biosecurity and get higher yields.  Some systems have been developed in fresh water sources and the salinity addition.  In this project have been evaluating the management of a poly-culture system using Tilapia, Shrimp and halophytes in an integrated system.

There are different techniques to recirculate water in aquaculture which include: a) Photoautotrophic based systems (also known as algae based systems or green water) which have the advantages of feed reduction on filtration species and low energy consumption compared to other techniques; b) Heterotrophic based systems (also known as Biofloc systems) that consume ammonia to produce a high load of bacteria that could be used for feed production and that conserve energy for temperature increase; Chemoautotrophic systems (or nitrifying systems) that oxidize ammonia to produce Nitrate and that can handle a high density of fish; d) Photo-Chemoautotrophic plant based systems (also known as Aquaponics) where ammonia and other nutrients are converted by bacteria and assimilated by commercial plants. There is a chance to combine some of this techniques together in one system and get more advantages.

At BOFISH farm we have tested and executed in commercial stage, the production of Tilapia, Shirmp and Vegetables in a Hybrid integrated system were a combination of the different recirculating systems has been developed in order to increase sub-product yields and reduce some operative costs such as: feed and energy.