CityFarm sells personalized aquaponics materials, basically the process is the same but the appearance can be different. The company designs the layout of the system that the client wants, for example a system that will be on a exterior wall, a system on the roof top of a building, or a interior system. These different systems have a different shape and must be adapt to the location where it will be working. The product characteristics are going to be more precise in a later section.
First of all we have to explain what is a aquaponic system1, the system itself is common in all different shapes.
An Aquaponic system consist of two parts, the aquaculture part for raising aquatic animals and the hydroponic part for growing plants. the bassi of the system is to use the dejection of the fishes, which are representing a good source of nutriment for plants, are reuse to feed the plants. there are 4 independent component which form the aquaponic system:
The Hydroponic Subsystem, is the tank where the water that just passed the bio-filter is injected, this is also the tank where the plants are growing by absorbing the nutriment contained in the water. The plant's roots are immerse in this nutrient-rich water while the plant itself floating on a floating raft, a piece of recycled/recyclable plastic that don't need to be change. the plant absorbing all nutriment that are in the water, so the water is cleaned and can be re-injected into the rearing Tank.
The electric low consummation Pump which allow the water to circulate into the system. The needed electricity for the pump can easily be supplied by a small solar panel in order to be the most energy efficient possible.
Our company offers a large range of aquaponic systems services, we have a design office that can adapt the system to pretty much every urban facilities depending on the need of the customers so solution are infinite.
The first service we propose is a fully integrated into buildings systems. This service concerns new green building projects. Our design Office will work with the architect of the building in order to integrate an aquaponics system into the building structure itself. Basically in this kind of project the hydroponic tanks where the plants are growing are located everywhere they can be located. In other words, we use all the available space to place hydroponics basins. The tanks where the fish are raised are usually located at the bottom of the building due to their heavy weight and size.
These kind of projects are usually very big and the conception part is long. When the project begins to get off the ground, our company will provide all the materials (pump/bio-filter/basins/plumbery) needed. In such a project the aquaponic system shape really depends on what the architect wants: Our system is really adaptive and can be, in this case, design to exactly fit the building shape.
The second service is a for commercial-use aquaponic systems. These system are used by professionals for a commercial use. CityFarm's clients are usually farmers outside cities, or communities that want to use their empty fields in the most effective way. Our company provides all the materials needed for an aquaponic facility, that kind of system are usually on a big scale. Our service package includes full installation and several options depending on the region where it is set up. We have, for example, partnerships with a green house producer, that has the same environmental values as us; for Northern countries where the snow forces farmers to use green house in order to crop all year long. Another example can be urban communities that have inside their geographic area of their community, a wasteland, that they want to use for growing local food in the most effective way, that is, growing fish and vegetables at the same time.
The third service is adaptive aquaponic urban systems. This is basically CityFarm main product, an adaptable to pretty much every kind of urban aquaponic system. We propose inside system as well as outside ones.
CityFarm provides 2 different outside systems:
Terrace style: We can install on exteriors walls a aquaponic terrace, on which you can walk. These terraces are the place where the plants grow and usually, at the bottom of the wall, we install the rearing tank where the fish are growing. These kind of systems required heavy building modification, but at the end the result are very beautiful. It allows peoples living in apartments to have a green space just outside their windows where they can take a walk and enjoy gardening.
Rooftops style: The basic aquaponic systems that can be install on every kind of roof tops, for example at the top of skyscrapers, where we install with the system, wind protections or a green house. This installation does not require building modifications.
CityFarm proposes two different types of aquaponic systems:
The first one called 'AquaPonic Farming Systems', is the simplest system where the imputs are electricity for the pump and food for the fishes. This type of system is a very big technological advance for farming and urban farming because it solve the problem of land space and land fertility. But in order to be the most sustainable possible the food for fishes must be as green and sustainable as possible, that is a big issue. This system can only grow some type of fishes, mostly herbivore, because the food of carnivore fishes composition2 is a mix of corn and other fishes meat (that have to be feed as well, transform and finally transport to the raising facilities). This process usually supports GMO corn industries, however TheCityFarm absolutely does not support GMO technology, and non-environmental-friendly fish food industries. As we said previously, TheCityFarm supports only green and sustainable companies and industries.
The second is 'EcoSystem AquaPonic', which is the finnest result of our research. The principle is that nature already gaves us a model of an totally sustainable food cycle, so CityFarm research and development unit closely observe how natural eco-systems work, and came up with a whole new aquaponic system wich solves the problem of the fishes' food. The system is a normal aquaponic system, but with an additional tank added, where fresh water Shrimps are growing. The scavenger food habitude of shrimps make is really easy to feed (a better look at shrimp system is explain later). The shrimps are used to feed the fishes so that solves the problems of non-sustainable fish-food, and the shrimps are fed with organic waste that comes from the aquaponic process. This type of system is really sustainable and permits us to be closer to the natural eco-system that has worked for hundred of millions years.
First of all we decided that we won't use bio-plastics, because all bio-plastics that we can use in our systems come from natural oil3, this natural oil come from specialized field where special non- eatable plants and cereals are growing and usually grow on field that have been created after cutting forest. It is also limiting and/or replacing the space where humanity can grow food. There is a tendency today that the price of cereals are skyrocketing because the demand of cereal to produce bio-plastic and bio-fuel rise4, CityFarm doesn't want to participate to this rise of cereal prices that starve peoples in southern countries. So the company rather uses recycled plastics as the quantity of recyclable available plastic is variable. CityFarm does not support raw materials that are not sustainable: Even if recycled plastics come from fossil non-renewable resources, there are already more than enough recyclable plastics in the human system. why search for alternatives to the plastic when recyclable one are available?
The company always follows what is the state of the art and it is open to every new green materials we can use, so if one day more sustainable bio-plastic (that does not destroy forest and limits the food supply), CityFarm will be happy to use it.
Tanks: large range of materials are used to built the tanks, it depend on what type of system is needed:
Pump: The pump come from a exclusive supplier that built our pumps under contract agreement with special green materials, our supplier guarantee us that the pump is from at least 70% recycled materials such as HDPE, but the pump itself must be 100% recyclable. The life cycle of the pump is a least 4 years and after this period only some of the modules need to be change, the module design of the pump make the replacement very easy to process, and for guarantee that the living parts of system (fishes and plants) are not threatened we provide extra modules (thes ones that are more likely to break) with the delivery of the system. That allows our customers to change parts really quickly and not threatened the living part of the systems (plants and fishes), and then order the module they just replace, we have also a recycling contract so broken or used module will be taken by our recycling service in order to assure the best recycling possible for out products.
Pipes: All pipes we made with HDPE a highly recyclable plastic6 that already comes from recycled plastics. This plastic have a virtual unlimited time of use as pipes, if correctly cleaned once a year, but even if the plastic have the highest quality possible break can happened, so our recycling contract force us to take responsibility for the best recycling possible of all of our products. The sealing joint we use for our system are made from a recycled polymer7 that is highly recyclable as well.
Wall-system support structures: As the weight of the entire system is really important for our support structure, they are made with difference types of aluminum alloy that are chosen for their different qualities8 such as resistance, weight, capacity to support heavy weight and other more complicated characteristics.
Floating systems (hydroponic component): this is the component of the system that is in direct contact with the plants. The shape of these floating systems can vary depending of the type of system, but they are all made with PET9 the abbreviation of polyethylene terephthanate (the plastic used for plastic bottles). It is a highly recyclable plastic, CityFarm guarantee that its floating systems are made with 100% post-consumer PET. This plastic has a very high resistance to water and these floating components do not need to be changed, their life cycle are virtually unlimited.
Green-house glasses parts: every glass part CityFarm uses in its product come from 100% recycled post-consumer glass. If correctly cleaned they have a life cycle of at least 30 years.
Plants: Basically an aquaponic system can support a lot of different plants10 such as:
salad lettuce/ boston lettuce/ cucumber/ tomatoes / raspberry / spring onions / aromatic herbs / corn / zucchini / summer squash / flowers / peppers / basil / spinach /
Fishes: a large range of fishes can be raise in our usual aquoponic system, because they are easily feed and hay grown fast. You can grow all the following fishes in a casual aquaponic system:
channel catfish / tilapia / rapple / bass / carp /brim / goldfish / koi
With more technological advanced systems, such as for commercial use, professional aquaponic farmers achieve to raise more difficult fishes, such as trout / salmon/ char. These fishes can as well be raise in Eco-System Aquaponic, but require more experience and attention.
Tilapia is the easiest fish to raise because it tolerates a large range of food, like plant waste small organism living in water algae, so CityFarm advise to raise this fish because it is really easy. With Tilapia the use of organic waste that are produce by the system itself, so at the end of the plant crops, all plants waste (roots and other) can be reused to feed the fishes.
Additional nutriment are still needed such as protein and other, so it is necessary to let some small aquatic insects and other snail in order to guarantee the optimum nutriment feeding for fishes. But for all other types of fishes large amount of fish food is needed, and fish food are not really sustainable, so feeding the fishes is really the big issue of the systems.
An alternative solution to feed carnivore fishes is to grow fresh water shrimps in an additional tank. These shrimps11 will be used for feeding the fishes. The advantages of shrimps is that they grow very fast, they are a very good source of nutriment for fishes and they are scavengers. Scavengers means that they can be fed with practically anything, including human food waste, waste that comes from processing fishes (head and hose/gut). You can also use organic waste to feed them. This kind of shrimps aquacultures makes the aquaponic system even more sustainable, because much of waste produced by the system itself (even if the system doesn't produce lots of waste) can be re-injected directly to the system, to be close to a real eco-system.
With this feeding solution the aquaculture is that of facitlitation, as carnivore fishes can be fed with no additional meat. Note, the aquaculture of carnivore fishes consumes a lot of meat, which makes this kind of farming very polluting, due to breeding of other fishes, and their transport. Hence the Eco-System Aquaponic is a very good solution for this kind of aquacultures.
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