Wendy Monroe

A 'Sister System' for the Mediamatic Aquaponics Project

How similar is a system of almost the same design... in a very different climate?

For family reasons, I am leaving Amsterdam and returning to my native San Francisco.
… Just as things are getting interesting with the system at Mediamatic's Urban Farm...
A 'sister system' system in Northern California is found!

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Sustainable_communities_shed - Aquaponics shed belonging to Self-Sustaining Communities Wendy Monroe

Self-Sustaining Communities, a nonprofit organization of Richmond, California, has a very similar aquaponics system to that of Mediamatic's Fabriek! The tilapia and bluegill fish swim in palletized liquid containers, and the tomato plants grow in hydrokorrel media beds which drain into the fish tanks through PVC siphons.

And, like the aquaponics setup at the Fabriek, the S-SC system is enclosed in a little shed.
Except that the shed is outdoors, and the sun shines here almost every day.

In a town like Richmond, a functioning Aquaponic system can make a real difference :
Mostly poor people live here, the food in the grocery stores is of generally low quality …and the word that keeps coming up is 'survival.'
As the sign says, it is not recommended to eat fish caught from the San Francisco Bay.

My desire is to apply what I've learned at the Fabriek, to this system belonging to Self-Sustaining Communities … and perhaps to bring some useful knowledge from this outdoor system in Richmond, back to Amsterdam as well.