Background Knowledge
    Aquaponics is a sustainable food production system that combines traditional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as snails, fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. [1]
    In aquaculture, effluents accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity for the fish. This water is led to a hydroponic system where the by-products from the aquaculture are filtered out by the plants as vital nutrients, after which the cleansed water is reciprocated back to the animals. The term aquaponics is a portmanteau of the terms aquaculture and hydroponic. [1]
    Aquaponic systems vary in size from small indoor or outdoor units to large commercial units, using the same technology. The systems may contain fresh or salt water, depending on the plants and animals desired. [1]
    Once the circulation system is built up, the only cost is fish food. For example, according to research data from Aquaponics UK, 1kg fish food can at least produce 50kg vegetables and 0.8kg fish for food).

Collapse Scenario
    As everyone knows, in some developing countries the population is growing rapidly, however the agricultural technology sometimes cannot meet the demands or the giant masses. Worse to the worse, the environment is getting worse due to the pollution, also the agricultural ecological crisis becomes more serious.
Therefore, there is great possibility that in the future, the agricultural system collapse in some countries. Citizens cannot buy enough food from the markets, in another word, too less agricultural products can the farmers provide for too many citizens. To solve the short supply of food, most of the residents have to acquire food from the family mini farm. In this circumstance, the aquaponics system is an ideal model to relieve the pressure.

 

Practice
    To have a further understand of aquaponic, I went to a pet shop and bought a betta fish and some weeds. To make sure I am doing right, I also talked to some people with long-term experience of keeping fish. Better still, a hacker-space in China was also doing a project to teach people to build up an aquaponic system themselves (from the container to the construction).
    My installation was simple: 1) a plastic jar with some sands and break stones in the bottom. 2) two plants with their roots in the water. 3) a male betta fish. 4) some fish food. I put the jar on the dining table so the fish and the plants can enjoy sunshine in the day time and work right.
    Two weeks have been passed and the fish is still lively swimming in the jar. I changed water twice, feed it 1-2 times every day. And here are some problems I have met:
1. FEED THE FISH
- It is so easy to forget to feed him!
- I suppose to feed him 2-3 times per day, however sometimes I cannot remember to feed him "breakfast" when I was hurry to get up late, or because I was too focus on my own stuff
- Once there was a time that I cannot remember whether I have fed him or not…None of my roommate remembers either.
- I cannot make sure if the amount of food is sufficient for him. Thus I cannot know if he is going to get bigger and bigger, or starve to die in one day…
2. CHANGE THE WATER
- It is hard to decide whether I should change the water. I changed twice because I can see the water was turbid or with an oil-slick on the surface.
- I did not purchase a test paper to test some special and important value.
- Add fresh water in time. (evaporation is severely in a room with radiator)
3. KNOWLEDGEMENT
- I do not have abundant knowledge of keeping fish. An expert friend told me if I want to keep the fish and plants well and long, water temperature, nutrients content and other subjects were key elements that I should keep an eye on them. Obviously, even I bought all the equipment to test the water condition, I cannot remember the standards of them.
- If the fish is kept for food, I should have a method to know its degree of maturity, as well as plants (vegetables).

 

Guidelines
    All in all, after the practice, I thought I really need a monitor to spy on the conditions and a reminder to send instructions, and all I need is just following it.
So what kind of problem need to be solved according to my research practice? To be concluded:
    First, if this aquaponic system is designed for a family, then it should contain enough spaces to plant a great amount of vegetables and fishes at the same time, (Consider the growth period and the need of storage) which means a lot of individuals need to be spied on.
    Second, if there is no intelligence system, someone in the family has to have abundant knowledge of agriculture, or even have to devote all of his time to take care of the systems to make sure the daily products are stable and enough for the whole family, to avoid becoming a family farmer, an intelligence monitor with massive database is of great significance and every parameter needs to be accurate.
    Third, it will be better to have a reminder system to alert people to take good care of the foods, because people are usually so busy that they might forget to check the aquaponic container every day.
Last, the installation itself should set up the equipment yet to detect the status automatically instead of manually using lots of external equipment.
   
Implications for Design
    In the future, the aquaponic container will be no more a small fish tank, but as big as a refrigerator. The goal for aquaponics is no longer for fun, but a serious practice to produce food for the whole family, therefore rapid cultivation (usually in nowadays it takes 3 years to wait for a fish fry grow into a eatable fish, which is too long) as well as properly handle becomes significant problems.
    Suppose that with the development of technology, nutrient has been invented to speed up the growth cycle and multiple types of vegetables can be cultivated at the same time. However, residents are not experts of farming and they care about the status and components of their foods, they need somebody to give them suggestions, thus designers think up an aquaponic systems with an internally installed monitor to surveillance the health condition of the fish and vegetables. By checking the report and following the instruction from the monitor, the residents can make sure they will get sufficient and healthy food.
    The monitor will generate a to-do list for the residents to carry out in order to gain their food. Hence they don't need to have expert knowledge, just need to simply follow the instructions.
    The monitor will spy on:
1. Water condition:
-    Temperature
-    Nitrate content
-    Oxygen content
-    Nutrient content (need to clean water)
-    Evaporation of water (need to supply water)
-    Oil slick (need to clean water)
-    Water weed condition
2. Fish condition:
-    Fish feeding reminder
-    Fish healthy degree
-    Fish maturity degree (for harvest estimate)
3. Vegetables condition:
-    Vegetables nutrients content
-    Vegetables healthy degree
-    Vegetables maturity degree (for harvest estimate)

 

Application
    An application was built up based on above requirements. It is easy to operate; even children can help their parents to take care of the systems. There will be a screen attached to the aquaponic tank; users can also download it on their portable devices.
    Users can see an overall estimation as well as individual estimation of his agricultural products by clicking to the specific position of the food in the app. He can also check the value of each essential parameters. A to-do reminder will give some suggestions to the users to make sure everything is in well condition. Since this system has a comprehensive database and real time monitoring mechanism, users don't need to know a lot extra knowledge, but simply need to follow the suggestions.
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To know more about the application, please try the mockup here.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
    (*The quality scale in the app is: Great > Good > Bad > Poor.)

Reference:
[1] Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics