Introduction

Our first contact with S&S Aqua Farm in Missouri, USA

Our first contact with aquaphonics was an article in the norwegian magazine for fish breeders "Norsk fiskeoppdrätt" in 1995. The article described how Tom and Paula Speraneo started a combination of fish breeding and growing plants in a nutritious solution. We became very interested in this combination of fish and plants without any poison or outlet of harmful nutriment in the sea. It was obvious that their way of integrating food production was indeed very ingenious and worthy of imitating. You can take part of their ideas on their homesite The S&S Bioponics in the Ozarks of Missouri, USA.

Tom and Paula had no big start capital so their system is the direct result of a forceful developing work without input of big money. Necessity was the mother of invention. Their system is simple and extraordanary ingenious, simply because it does not use the technology ordinarily associated either with fish farming or plant farming.

As the Speraneos didn't have any earlier experience of cultivating, they built their system without prejudice of conventional farming. The result was at the time very puzzling for "experts" at universities and others with conventional experiance.

A profound asset is the systems flexibility. A "node" is defined as a fish tank linked to one or many plant beds. Such a node can be downscaled to a kitchen. It can also be adapted to a small green house in the garden or with many nodes it can be developped to a commercial plant.

Besides the size and simplicity of the system it is also very environmentally friendly. There is no outlet. Plants and bacterias in the growing beds use the nutritous water and thereby cleaning it. When the water returns to the fish, it is aired and healthy for the fish.

The system components - the fish - the bacterias - the plants - require clean water. You cannot use any poison or antibiotic in the system. The result of this system is clean and healthy food .

Aquaphonics at Cat Beach

	Our first mini greenhouses
	Our first fishbasin
	Pekka contemplating

We did our first trials in 1997.

We had Rainbow trouts in a tank in one house and the plants in the other. Behind and below the greenhouses was a pumpstation. We had just one 220V-pump (+ one in reserv on battery) in the system and let some of the circulating water run continously from the tank through the growingbeds. Most of the circulating water went through an oxygen-trap (a pipe filled with plastic-rollers like womens-curlers) which provided the right environment for fish and plants.

The result of the first season was more than we expected. We had a number of small problems, like an infestation of a type of small fly and sometimes we had some difficulties to cool the greenhouses. But on the whole the rainbow trouts grew well and we had a good harvest of tomatoes and pepper.

The next year we built a bigger greenhouse. We had good help with financing the project with funds from the EU. Ever since then we have continued to devellop new details in the system.

The new green house behind the smokehouse and our greenhouse in the middle of winter

The text in this part of the homesite contains information about our success and failures. We have tried to describe such information people ask qustions about. The first description is about starting a very small system. It is a matter of fact discription without any analysis or deeper explanation. Later will follow an all-embracing description about a bigger system and there we (will) explain the background for our decisions in detail.

We don't claim to have the ultimate solution and we want you to understand that we learn new things almost every day. We think this can be a starting point from where you yourselves can construct a system of your own.

We continuously try to improve our system and we have the ambition to describe our efforts as times passes. On the other hand we hope to share your experiance so please - keep in touch!
Our mail is Rainbow Fisheries

Per-Erik Nygård       Stefan Goës

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