Sustainable House Day, Manunda, Cairns QLD

  Please note only the Aquaponics garden will be open to visitors.

Aquaponics in Manunda  

Ever thought about growing your own vegetables whilst also harvesting barramundi in your backyard? This household demonstrates how easy and how productive aquaponics can be.    

The sustainable feature of this house is its’ self built aquaponics system. Please note only the Aquaponics garden will be open to visitors.  

Aquaponics is the creation of a complete cycle of symbiotic relationships where the fish help plants and the plants help fish. Aquaponics uses no chemicals, requires one tenth of the water needed for field plant production and only a fraction of the water that is used for fish culture. (Aquaculture) This is truly a remarkable system, because it works so well. The fish actually supply nutrients to a bed of plants, (called Grow Beds) and plants clean up the water that the fish live in, making a mutual beneficial environment for both. The only external input to the system is food for the fish. Len has built his own fish tanks out of re-used materials that he has salvaged from all over Cairns. In these he keeps barramundi. He has also built raised grow beds from re-used materials. This provides enough space for herbs and vegetables to be grown. Wendy and Len have been amazed by how quickly their vegetables grow using the nutrient rich water produced by the fish. They are constantly experimenting with different varieties and have found that Asian vegetables grow very well in the tropical climate.