Aquaponics Balance Calculator
Don’t guess
Design and build a Balanced Farm
AHAponics Farming Concept
A small car engine can't power a big truck. A truck engine is oversized for a small car.
Similarly, your aquaponics fish engine should be sized to your growing area.
This calculator provides a sizing recommendation for your fish engine based on the dimensions of your farm’s growing area.
The growing process
The farming process involves three major steps:
• Germination (7 days)
• Nursery (usually 14 days) in high-density spacing where the pots are next to each others
• Production lines: 3 to 6 weeks depensing on the plant
To maximize the farm production, we need to utilize all available growing space. In the production lines, the plant density should be adapted to the plant size.
• Period 1: All the board slots are used
• Period 2: 50% of the board slots are used, providing more growing space to the plants.
• Period 3: 25% of the board slots are used at the end of the growing process.
As plants grow larger than thieir pot in the nursery, the are moved to a production line greowing at 100% density.
When they touch each other again, the 100% density boards are split into two 50% density bnoards.
Some lettuce, variety, like cos, can be harvested at 100% or 50% density, while others, like Oak, require an additional period at 25% density.
Very large plants like Oak lettuce may need a board split again to 25% density
The fish Engine
The fish engineer must have enough power to feed all the plants.
It’s fueled by fish food containing proteins and minerals.
The fish process these proteins to grow and reject ammonia, which bacteria convert into nitrate fertilizer (NPK).
Therefore, it is crucial to design your farm with the right number of fish for your growing area.
Aquaponics Balance Calculator
This calculator assits you to design your farm.
Enter the general settings
• The number of growing boards available in your farm production lines. Take into account the additional space required for the nursery.
• The number of slots available on your growing boards
• Your targeted harvesting plant weight
Some plants, like cos lettuce, can be harvested at 60g after 25 days at 100% density or 90g after 20 days at 100% density and 10 days at 50% density. Oak lettuce are best harvested at 150g after 12 days at 100% density, 12 days at 50% density, and 12 days at 25% density. Oaks can grow up to 250g at lower densities.
Continue with the density split:
• Number of days at 100% density
• Number of days at 50% density
• Number of days at 25% density
The calculator provides:
• Expected boards and plants at each density
• Expected daily and monthly production
• Weekly seeding requirement
• Size of the required nursery
• Quantity of daily fish food and fish needed
• Size of the fish tank required
The calculator will be available here very soon
More advanced Aquaponics Balance design app
With Ceres, you enter the desired production and selling price for each plant individually.
Then Ceres:
• Sizes the required farm
• Sizes the fish engine
• Provides a seeding plan for each plant
• Provides accurate farm production and revenue expectations
