Aquaponics systems are becoming more and more popular as additions to permaculture gardens. In fact, they are becoming increasingly important in the struggle to create more efficient and green methods of producing food. By allowing two harvests – of plants and fishes – as well as generating significant economies of energy input, water use and space, aquaponics systems may well have a claim to be one of the food production systems of the future – the beauty being that they already exist in the here and now. (Of course, aquaponics methods of agriculture have played a part throughout human history and remain important to many cultures, but remain relatively unutilized in the West.)
If you are considering establishing an aquaponics system as part of your permaculture plot, one of the key decisions you will need to make is which species of fish to stock it with. There are lots of factors that will come into play when making this decision – everything from what type of food the species needs, how it interacts with plant roots, their size and, of course, what they taste like. And, as with other permaculture systems that you institute, a thorough analysis of the needs, products and inherent characteristics of the fish should be done as well. Some of the criteria to consider when doing an analysis of fish species are whether the fish is suited to living in enclosed tanks, how resistant to disease the species is, what water conditions it needs (and what you can provide), and whether they are available for purchase near you.
However, there are certain species of fish that have proved to be particularly adaptable to aquaponics. Here we highlight some of the species that aquaponics practitioners have enjoyed success with.