On the generous advice of a friend and mentor, Pedro Casas-Cordero, I decided to follow his example and use the fish nursery as a source of nutrients for seedlings prior to their transplant to the main grow area. To keep a staggered rotation of tilapia, we must acquire new fingerlings every 2-3 months.  These 2-5 grams fish are too small to place in the large tanks in the fish house, so we must raise them for 2 months or so until they reach 50-100 grams in weight. So during this growth peri...

As the great jazz singer Etta James once sang "At last!" No phrase could have more relevance to my experience over the past two years riding a rollercoaster as I have tried to implement my dream —a commercial Aquaponics farm in Santa Fe, NM to provide a new local food source for our disadvantaged communities.. With phenomenal teaching and mentorship from Charlie Shultz and his colleagues, Pedro Casas and Abbey Torres at Santa Fe Community College, I set out on a journey to build a greenhouse and...