Pets Keepers Guide Forums

Starting in 1971, The Bioshelter Research, by New Alchemy Institude, began with the idea of producing solar greenhouses which would be enclosed ecosystems that contained food crops and fish ponds and indoor wild life for biological pest control.

The first pro-type bioshelter was a cheap plastic dome placed over a inflatable wading pool. Soil was placed along the outer edges of the pool, and food crops were grown and watered with the warm nutrient rich pond water.

Later a bigger dome was built and placed over a 700 gallon in-ground plastic lined pool. A dome called the Six-Pack Backyard Solar Greenhouse, was built in 1975. It included a cement fish pond. In 1976, The Cape Cod Ark was built to study the energy dynamies of solar structures. It was proven this one could maintain a healthy and liveable interior climate and produce fresh food. It also needed very little winter time fuel.

In 1976, The Prince Edward Island Ark was built that combined a green house and a residential house, storeage space and a barn and several solar aquaculture ponds surrounded by active solar hot air and hot water systems. In these solar bioshelters they raised tilapia and yellow bull-headed catfish.

The aquaculture solar fish ponds made from fiberglass contained many growing fish and the nutrient rich pond water was used to fertilize the plants. One pond, invented by Ron Zweig, and thus named the Zweig pond, was a solar pond with fish and hydroponic lettuce growing and floating on the surface of the water in the tank. It produced lettuce continuously and provided many harvests of fish.

By visiting this webpage you can download for free the 63.57md pdf, Alchemy guidebook and the 4.28 pdf download on Aquaculture, and other pdf download on the agriculture side of the solar experiments. I got all three and find the information to be very detailed with pictures and diagrams, and measurements.
http://www.thegreencenter.net/newalchemy.html

Check it out and come back and share your views on this interesting way of raising fish and plants. Please share here.

During the years of 1989-2006, the Cape Cod Ark was expanded to include a large amount of plants and 9 solar fish ponds, each tank was 700 gallons.

The aquaculture you are raising for fishes is really nice, giving them a natural atmosphere in greenhouse is going to be a tough job but I think all these things are more complicated when you comes to pest control because they need to have these pests but most of the places like green houses becomes dirty with them because they are indoor wild life.

This is amazing technology. The Zweig Pond is a variation of the aquaponics system. Where hydroponics is integrated with aquaculture so you can grow vegetables and raise fish in the same place. Waste from the fish is absorbed by the vegetables where they serve as fertilizer and the roots of the vegetables absorb the ammonia and other wastes, cleaning the water in the process. The fish then thrive in the cleaned water, repeating this beautiful process.

Since then, numerous variations of the Zweig Pond have been designed. It is an ingenious way to grow vegetables without chemical fertilizers and the only thing necessary is sunlight and food for the fish.