July 3rd we made a field trip to aquaponics sites in South Iceland. We visited Hlynur in Hveragerdi, Dagur in Reykholt and of course our own site at Akur. We also came by the banana house at the Agricultural University, Solheimar and tasted the amazing tomato soup at Fridheimar. We ended up in the swimming pool in Hveragerdi and a taste of Grevens cider.

The aquaponics seminar held at the University of Iceland last Wednesday was very successful with more than thirty interested participants from aquaculture, horticulture, design, research and other fields. The seminar ended with a tour to the aquaponics pilot units set up by the EcoPonics group coordinated by Svinna-verkfraedi. The slides from the seminar can be found below.

• Introduction to Aquaponics – Dr. Ragnheidur I Thorarinsdottir
• Basics – plant and fish species – Ragnar Ingi Danner
• Water Quality – Utra Mankasingh
• System design – Marvin Ingi Einarsson
• Breen Aquaponics – Enar Agirre
• Rainbow trout in aquaponics – Siv Lene Gangenes Skar
• Decoupled Aquaponics – Dr. Paul Rye Kledal
• Sustainability – Prof. Kristin Vala Ragnarsdottir

COST Action FA1305 ‘EU Aquaponics Hub’ is looking for PhD and/or postdoctoral researchers who are motivated, committed to innovative research and who are interested in aquaponics research and development.  Further information can be found in the links below.

STSM1: Integration of aquaculture wastewater and aerobically mineralized fish manure in hydroponic culture

- Deadline for applications: June 1st 2015

COST Action FA1305 is offering 20 places on the training school 2 Essential Aquaponics to be held at University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical faculty, Slovenia 15 – 19 June 2015. Successful applicants will be offered a maximum grant of €1200 as a contribution towards the costs of travel, accommodation and meals. The deadline for applications is May 25th 2015, see information sheet.

The training school will be delivered by dr. Vesna Miličić, University of Ljubljana, Mr Matej
Leskovec, Ponika Company, Mrs. Urška Kleč, Biotechnical centre Naklo, Mr Michael Adrian Barnes, Desert Aquaponic Company, dr. Tom Beyers, Provinciaal Proefcentrum voor de Groenteteelt OostVlaanderen and Mr. Rob van de Ven, LandIng Aquaculture. The lectures and practical classes will be mainly conducted at the University of Ljubljana and Biotechnical centre Naklo in their Experimental Aquaponic Unit located at the Biotechnical Centre Naklo experimental station.

 The FA1305 COST meeting on Aquaponics was held April 21-24 hosted by Professor Lidia Robaina at the University of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. The Working Groups presented their work so far and the tasks for the coming year.  Ten young researchers were invited to join the meeting and they all presented their aquaponics related research projects.  The COST network has had a successful start already resulting in several international presentations, publications and research project applications e.g. to Horizon2020. The first aquaponics training school will be held in Gran Canaria in May on Aquaponic trials: improving water quality and plant production  through fish management and diet. The next training schools are planned in Slovenia in June on basics in aquaponics hosted by the University of Ljubljana, in Iceland in September on economics in aquaponics hosted by Svinna-verkfraedi Ltd and the University of Iceland and in Belgium on sludge processing in February 2016 hosted by the University of Liege.

COST Action FA1305 is offering 15 places on the training school “Aquaponic trials: improving water quality and plant production through fish management and diet” to be held at Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain May 25-29 2015. Successful applicants will be offered a maximum grant of €1200 as a contribution towards the costs of travel, accommodation and meals. The deadline for applications is April 24th 2015, see information sheet below.

Gran Canaria FA1305 training school

COST Action FA1305 ‘EU Aquaponics Hub’ is looking for PhD and/or postdoctoral researchers who are motivated, committed to innovative research and who are interested in conducting an in-depth experiment focusing on managing nutrient levels in aquaponics.  This research will also investigate closing the nutrient loop by reusing fish sludge. The work will furthermore involve microbiological profiling and the detection of root and plant diseases that may occur in the systems.

Nutrient mass balance STSM

COST Action FA1305 ‘EU Aquaponics Hub’  is looking for PhD students or postdoctoral researchers who are motivated, innovative and interested in developing a database for the nutritional content of fish aquafeeds for aquaponics and fish feeding
strategies to meet vegetable requirements for aquaponics.

Fish feed STSM

IGFF hosted a work shop on aquaponics March 17th presenting entrepreneurs in Denmark that have implemented aquaponics pilot units of different scales but all aiming for urban aquaponics. IGFF presented the EcoPonics pilot unit situated at Agrotech´s facilities in Taastrup. The setup is based on a decoupled design and provides opportunities for testing different levels of recirculation between the fish and the plant units. IGFF has tested several plants so far and two fish species, tilapia and pike perch. The fish is doing well.  In some cases the plants are growing well, however some plants, e.g. tomato plants need additional Fe, K and/or Ca for optimum growth. The seminar was very successful gathering young people from high school and university level, researchers and entrepreneurs.