The history of aquaponics isn’t completely clear yet it has clearly been around for quite a while. Some of the earliest records of aquaponics is the Aztecs and the 6th century Chinese farmers. The Aztecs grew crops on their islands next to fish, using the fish faeces to fertilise the crops. They called this system ‘chinampas’. The Chinese farmers are said to have reared ducks in cages on top of a tank of finfish, the duck faeces fed the finfish and then the finfish faeces would transfer into a catfish tank. Any left over waste water from the catfish was used on the rice crops. In 1969, William McLarney, Nancy and John Todd, built a prototype of the Aztec aquaponic system as a way of providing shelter, vegetables and fish throughout the year. There are many other records of aquaponics in history, all of these systems helped us get to the system of aquaponics we use now. The image below displays the Aztecs form of aquaponics.