Feasibility Study of Aquaponics in Polyculture Pond

The study was conducted to see the feasibility of raft aquaponics in polyculture pond. Three experimental ponds (with an area of 5.2, 3.12 and 3.12 decimal) were selected where the third one was considered as control pond. Locally available cheap materials were used in preparing rafts, e.g., bamboo splits, iron wire, plastic thread and disposable plastic water bottle. Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus), water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica), pudina (Mentha arvensis), brinjal (Solanum melongena), tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum), giant taro (Alocasia macrorrhiza) and Indian spinach-red (Basella rubra) saplings were planted in the raft. Pond 1 and 2 were found to be covered with 4.12% and 2.56% with raft vegetable respectively. The percentage of specific growth rate (SGR) per day for Pangas (Pangasius hypophthalmus) was 2.57, 1.27 and 2.36 but it was found to be 0.822, 0.795 and 0.438 for Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) in ponds 1, 2 and 3 respectively. For both fishes, the highest growth was found in pond 1. The production from each raft for pudina, water spinach and okra was about 266.7, 333.3 and 66.7 g respectively. Only pudina production was well enough to get benefit from raft vegetable culture and benefit-cost ratio of pudina production was about 7.82. In the study period giant taro showed good growth. Fruits and flowers were observed in Indian spinach-red and brinjal respectively at the end of the study period. Brinjal plants was affected by disease and tomato plants did not survive in the pond condition due to algae and other fouling clog on the roots which prevented nutrients up take from the pond water.