Tom Cooley

An Introduction

to Aquaponics for Vegetarians

This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Individual images have varying licenses.

For many vegetarians and vegans, myself included, becoming a vegetarian is a gradual process - first giving up red meat, later all meat, and for vegans, eventually giving up other animal products. This transitional process usually results in people eating food which takes less energy to produce, which often results in less use of oil, water and other resources.

​

​

Aquaponics is generally defined as - the growing of aquatic life (usually fish) and vegetables in a designed closed ecological system¹.

Why would vegetarians consider this method of growing their own food?

​

Why prefer aquaponics over conventional systems or hydroponics?

​

The answer is simple:

Aquaponics may well be the cleanest, most efficient method for growing organic food devised to date..

​

A myriad of other ecological factors favor aquaponics.

​

Try thinking about the many different methods of growing food along a sustainability color spectrum, moving from ultraviolet to green.

​

Along this spectrum:

• ultraviolet
• Would use large quantities of petrochemicals and other non renewable resources per pound of food;
• green agriculture, on the other hand
• would emphasize minimal use of non renewable resources.

​

​

I

In an ultraviolet system, for example

1. Cows fed chemically fertilized grains are often raised where tropical rainforests once stood and their meat is shipped long distances at additional cost
2. Oil is involved in raising, harvesting and processing the grain
3. Grain is then fed to cattle (typically requiring about 7 pounds of feed per pound of meat produced²)
4. Meat is then transported thousands of miles before it is consumed, again using more non renewable resources.

​

​

In the middle of this sustainability spectrum, we find food which has a higher

• ecological efficiency³ (perhaps organic vegetables are being grown) or
• lower feed conversion ratio⁴ (perhaps fish or poultry are being raised instead of cattle)

yet we still deplete significant quantities of non renewable resources due to shipping, over-fishing, and other factors (as this article highlights⁵).

​

​

Low efficiency foods with high feed conversion rates grown locally would also fall in the mid range. Though fewer non-renewable resources would be used in shipping, more might be used in raising the food.

Finally, at the Green end of the sustainability spectrum, we have locally and sustainably grown food which has a:

​

1. low trophic level⁶ and/or
2. conversion ratio of “feed” to “food" ⁴

​

What Do Fish Add to the Green Spectrum?

​

• Fish don't need to contend with gravity in their environment, so they use less energy than animals which live on land.
• As cold blooded animals, they don't need to maintain their body temperature, which is an additional energy cost for warm blooded animals.

​

If fish are fed a high protein diet like spirulina⁷, they can convert that food into body mass much more effectively than land animals. In ideal conditions,

​

Some fish can convert as much as 5 pounds of body weight for every 6 pounds of food they eat.

​

From the perspective of supporting others who may be moving towards vegetarianism, supporting local cultivation of fish over other types of livestock makes a lot of sense.

It is well beyond the scope of this introduction to determine the precise sustainability (or ahimsa⁸) of buying transported, non-local veganic⁹ or hydroponic produce grown using mined chemical nutrients in comparison to aquaponically grown plants. However:

​

​

• ​

Is a backyard koi pond/spirulina aquaponics system considered ahimsa⁸?

​

Veganic¹⁰ farming is likely not, since it involves soil and therefore the possibility of harming worms.

Some vegans¹¹, myself included, will be fine with eating aquaponically grown produce, others will not. Veganic, hydroponic and aquaponic farming all tend towards the green end of the sustainability spectrum, but sustainably feeding the number of people on Earth currently may require additional strategies as well; I've outlined a few possibilities for those in a much more detailed document here¹².

​

​

A: “I have to respond back by asking if the vegetables you buy now taste like cow manure or other fertilizers. No, they don’t taste like fish." ~ Jason Licamele¹³

More Aquaponics Questions from Vegetarians:

​

Q: Do the vegetables taste like fish?

A: Because fish are cold blooded animals, they don't harbor these diseases. You are actually at less risk eating aquaponically grown vegetables than eating those grown in more conventional ways.

Q: What about diseases like salmonella and e. coli?

​

1. You can raise ornamental fish like koi for stocking fish ponds.
2. You can raise fish in ways that keep their population at a fairly constant level based on the amount of food they are provided and various methods to control the number of new fish you have.
3. You can breed fish in order to help start up new aquaponics systems. If you have felines, providing them with fish as food as an alternative to cat food from the store might be an option.
4. If you have friends or relatives who would like to eat the fish while you eat the vegetables, this may be an option as well.

​

​

Q: What happens to the fish if I don't want to eat them?

​

A: If you are a vegetarian and decide to start raising vegetables using aquaponics, there are several possibilities:

A: No. Aquaponics doesn't require the use of chemical fertilizers and disposal of waste water which are the downsides of growing vegetables hydroponically. Additionally, aquaponics offers all of the advantages which hydroponics has to offer - like increased yields and no weeding.

​

​

Q: For vegetarians, doesn't it make more sense just to have a vegetable garden or grow food hydroponically?

​

​

Sylvia Bernstein’s Aquaponic Gardening community¹⁴ is a great resource for people wanting to learn more about aquaponics - you can find videos, ask questions of forum members, and find people who are interested in aquaponics in your area with the member map as well as read up on many different aquaponics topics.

​

F.A.S.T.¹⁵ has useful links on “how to” type aquaponics information including a Barrelponics how to manual, The IBCs of Aquaponics¹⁶, etc.

​

Friendly Aquaponics has low cost DIY instruction manuals¹⁷ for various sizes of aquaponics systems as well as a description of how 3rd world aquaponics systems¹⁸ might work. For more on feeding the developing world, check out my other aquaponics document¹² and the Grow Your Own Spirulina document.

​

​

Are you ready to try aquaponics yourself, or do you want to encourage someone else? There are many great resources online; there are few changes between vegetarian and non vegetarian aquaponics systems aside from those mentioned above:

​

​

Special thanks to Susan Cushing for tons of editorial assistance on my aquaponics documents and to June Stoyer²⁰ for all her aquaponics promotional assistance.

Other online sources of aquaponics information abound (YouTube videos on bell siphons¹⁹ are just one example).

​

I hope this document has inspired you to investigate this exciting field of study further.

Tom Cooley has been a vegan for nearly 40% of his life now and is an on again off again blogger on topics like sustainability, solutions, spirulina and aquaponics. You can find him in various places online via the Empire Avenue account (e)FEEDTHEWORLD, and occasionally underwater

​

99% Monkeys²¹ is a Project Supporting 100% Sustainable Food through Aquaponics and Social Media