The ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture has designed and developed a pilot scale Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) aquaponics system under its All India Coordinated Research Project on Plasticulture Engineering and Technology (AICRP on PET) centre located at Bhubaneswar.
The system comprises of fish culture tank, submersible water pump, trickling filter, four NFT grow pipes each having length of 3 m and 9 perforations (3-inch diameter each for holding net pots) for growing plants.
Using the system, various plants like poi saga (Basella alba), marigold (Tagetes erecta), bottle gourd (lagenaria siceraria), lady's finger (Abelmoschus esculentus) and long bean (Vigna unguiculata) along with different fish species are grown in the Kausalyaganga campus. The combination of climbing perch (Anabas testudineus) fish and poi saga in the system showed 34 per cent higher growth in fishes in aquaponics tank compared to control tank due to improved water quality by removal of dissolved nutrients by the plants. The combination of tilapia fish and marigold plants showed yielding 450 marigold flowers from 36 plants in the system in 3 months. The system can be used in the rooftop and by this, the urban population can get easy access to natural foods and recreation. Till today, three experiments have successfully been conducted in the system developed at ICAR-CIFA.
A team of scientists namely K Anantharaja, Dr BC Mohapatra, Dr NK Barik, Dr BR Pillai and Dr JK Sundaray are involved in developing a commercially viable model of aquaponics system considering the future scenario of land and water scarcity in India.