Commercial Fish Feed vs Sustainable Alternatives

Aquaponics is a natural way to grow food. Rather than adding fertilizer directly to the plants in the form of man-made chemicals, we follow a more natural holistic approach.  Aquaponics utilizes the natural symbiosis of the living food web with microorganisms breaking down the waste from the aquaculture tanks into our primary source of food for our plants.  However, not all fish are fed equally and in the controversial world of aquaculture we need to take a good look at just how sustainable the industry really is. How we can avoid commercial fish feed and create are own truly sustainable options to successfully raise fish and vegetables long into the future with zero waste and only natural inputs? How can we develop this system  to evolve into a thriving, balanced ecosystem?  

Commercial fish feed in aquaponics is plagued with a number of problems depending on its main protein source. The bulk of commercial fish feed in aquaponics is from fish meal made by processing waste from the food fish industry.

The second form is from land animal waste in the form of by-products from  slaughterhouses. Blood, bone and organs not used in the human food industry get sold and turned into animal feed. This practice has led to a number of devastating pandemics most famously BSE in the late 1980’s as well as a common source of E-coli and Salmonella entering the food chain.

With this in mind, aquaponics farmers must march to the beat of a different drum, one based on working with nature and observing patterns that we can incorporate into our engineering of ecosystems. We must find truly sustainable alternatives for our fish feed input,  including plant and insect based protein and fat sources that stop the depletion of our radioactively polluted oceans, with heavy metal builds ups in the ocean fish, that bio accumulate up into the food chain.

Sustainable Fish Food Alternatives:
To meet the requirement for the necessary protein, fat & minerals, we use plant and insect based food including:

Plant based: moringa, soy, azolla minor, azolla major, azolla wolffia (superfood).

Insect based: black soldier fly, crickets, mealworms.