Aquaponics is a promising approach for a sustainable intensification of food production and the number of commercial systems is increasing in Europe, the US and worldwide. Nevertheless, balancing nutrient concentrations and establishing optimal growth conditions for fish and plants is challenging, especially with demanding crops (e.g. tomatoes). In classical aquaponic systems hydroponic units are integrated in the water cycle of an aquaculture system. This can result in suboptimal growth conditions (e.g. pH). Decoupled aquaponic systems were developed to address these obstacles by separating the two production cycles. Aquaculture and hydroponic units are connected via a one-way valve and water is only transferred from the aquaculture unit to hydroponic units on demand, but not back. Thereby an individual management of both production units and the maintenance of optimal growth conditions in decoupled aquaponics are enabled, resulting in comparable yields compared to conventional production systems.

Bio

University of Bremen - Marine Biology

Diploma-thesis at Leibniz - Centre for Tropical Marine Research and Max-Planck-Institute for Marine Microbiology        

Research assistant at Leibniz -Institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in Berlin within the field of aquaponics in the project ASTAF-PRO   

PhD student at IGB financed via Elsa-Neumann-scholarship: Overcoming major bottlenecks in aquaponics - A practical approach

Post-Doc at IGB within the projects INAPRO and CITYFOOD

Hendrik Monsees will be at our Putting Up Shoots Conference coming from Berlin, Germany.