Abstract
In the current era intensive aquaculture and agriculture is contributing a lot to address the
global issue, food security. However, still these have limitations in applications to small
farmers' level regarding high level of technology and high initial investment. To compensate
these issues a technology is emerged called aquaponics which is an integration of aquaculture
and hydroponic. Hydroponics literally refers to the culture of plants where water is used as a
medium instead of soil. In aquaponics the effluent from fish culture system is transported on regular interval to a hydroponic bed where the effluents are used up by the plants as nutrients;
thus plant is produced as a byproduct, and at the same time the water also become waste freе
which is reused by flowing it back to the fish culture system. The cost of effluent treatment
from the fish culture tank or the effects of throwing wastewater from fish culture to the
environment thus is also avoided. As this water treatment through hydroponics system is done
regularly with a specific interval(s) of time, fishes can be also cultured in high density which
also saves space. The hydroponic system can be also set up on the fish culture tank which also
saves space. Though, aquaponics has a lot of merits its application in the pond level is not yet
intensively investigated to most of the agricultural crops of Bangladesh. Therefore, during
these research works aquaponics system was applied to the field level. Three experiments were
set; first two in the backyard cisterns in the constructed aquaponics system at the southern side
of the Faculty of Fisheries, Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh,
Bangladesh. The experiment 3 was set at M.O. Agro Fisheries and Hatchery, Trishal,
Mymensingh, Bangladesh. The experiments were conducted from April 2014 to November
2016. In all experiments tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) was used as the test animal in
aquaculture systems whereas sponge gourd and sugarcane was cultivated as test plants in the
first two experiments, and third experiment, respectively. In experiment 1 three flow rates 9,
12, and 15 1/minute flow rate were tested in backyard cisterns where the 15 1/minute showed
the best result. The highest total production of sponge gourd was 35,018.33±273.40 g. Then
using this flow rate experiment 2 was conducted to find out the suitable flow durations from 2,
4, and 6 hours/day where 6 hours/day showed the best result. The highest total production of
sponge gourd (36,706.67±249.74 g) was almost similar to that of treatment 1. Finally, using the
combinations of best flow rate and duration another aquaponic system was set in the field level
(experiment 3) in M.O. Agro Fisheries and hatchery, Trishal, Mymensingh, Bangladesh.
Usually in sugarcane culture a large amount ofnutrients are required which is targeted to fulfill
through this study. One treatment (T2) maintaining 10 fishes/m³ and 8 plants/m²with control
(T1) following the traditional culture system were maintained. Production in T2 was estimated
as 6.6 kg tilapia/m³ and 21.6 kg sugarcane/m². The height, weight, juice content, Brix% and
Pole% cane were taken into consideration. The highest level of values for each criteria were
found in T2. As high growth rates of sugarcane in aquaponic culture are found in this
experiment, this is being highly recommended for commercial implementation which will
return greater economic benefit as well as will bring less harm to the environment compared to
the traditional aquaculture.