Mesa Community College Center for Urban Agriculture

06/12/2025

Aquaponics at Mesa Community College
June 12 2025

Another week, another 2,190 grams (about 5 pounds ) of produce (cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers) 1/2 hour per week management. I suppose it could do more if more time was spent. ) (P.S. Just a hypothetical, if the system continues to produce at this rate, and annual harvest would be 260 lbs. For comparison a 15 x 25 foot victory garden from WW2 had an annual production of about 200 lbs.)

06/06/2025

Aquaponics at Mesa Community College
June 6 2025

Well the semester is long over and there is no one around. The DWC aquaponics gets about 1 hours of maintenance a week. Mostly to feed the fish and harvest the fruit. Still producing good food though. This week a little more than 5 pounds of cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers.

05/29/2025

Aquaponics at MCC.
May 29 2025
Deep Water Culture System Evolution

2014 A. 40 ft2. The first DWC build for MCC. It worked well but was a little complex and may have been difficult to duplicate at home.

2018 B. 40 ft2. A simpler, lower cost but equally effective design based on the following paper.http://nxthorizon.com/PDF/design1.pdf

2023 C & D. The final design used. A simpler but more versatile evolution of design b.

05/16/2025

Aquaponics at Mesa CC
May 16 2025

Well the semester is over and the class was great. However we still have a little knowledge to pass along. Our Deep Water Culture system is making the transition to summer plants. People are not around as much in the summer but the plants are doing well. One way to tell how good things are going is the quality is the quality of the water. Clear water as in the video is not all one needs to see to manage a system but seeing it never-the-less is a good sign.

03/16/2025

Ags-166 Aquaponics Growth Update

DWC Feb 22 to March 14 2025.
Growing a little slow. Odd weather I guess

03/15/2025

AGS-166 Aquaponics Spring 2025
March 15 2025
(NOTE AQUAPONICS IS A METHOD OF AQUACULTURE AND AQUACULTURE IS THE FARMING AND HUSBANDRY OF PLANTS AND AQUATIC ORGANISMS)

Aquaculture America 2025 World Aquaculture Society
March 6-10 2025

It was amazing to attend the recent Aquaculture America 2025 conference in New Orleans La. More than 2000 aquaculture professionals and students were in attendance as well of more that 1600 papers presented. Three of them were mine. (George Brooks). I also had the honor of serving as a subject matter session chair this year. Great food (New Orleans naturally) great information.

However, the greatest parts were the attendance at the conference of two of the amazing students from AGS-166 Austin Rodriguez and Richard Hauck as well as friend and aquaponics colleague Dr. Anthony Pratcher from Northern Arizona University, Dr. Shadeed Abdul-Salaam from Moorehouse College and my wife and partner Angela Brooks. Austin gave a great presentation to one of the student sections (P.S. because of a technical glitch I was only able to recored the last part of Austin's talk :-( )

Next on to Aquaculture America 2026 in Las Vegas next year.

02/22/2025

AGS-166 a blast from the past.

One day we will figure out how to grow these in mass.

Freshwater prawns are raised right here in the desert, believe it or not.

02/22/2025

AGS 166 AQUAPONICS FEB 19 2025

All three systems fully functional Media Bed, NFT and DWC and ready for the class to start growing food. Some small early harvests have already been taken from the lettuce in the DWC.

02/11/2025

Thinking about beekeeping? Check out UofA’s new beekeeping course.

02/04/2025

AGS-166 Aquaponics. Monday Feb 3 2024

L. Deep Water Culture (DWC) The water recirculation system is fully operational and planting is complete. No fish yet

R. Nutrient Film Technology (NFT) system has been cleaned and is ready for start up. Extra plants currently in the DWC will be transferred to NFT Wednesday.

01/30/2025

AGS-166 Aquaponics Spring 2025