Baromate desktop aquaponics aquarium for hire

You will find no plants in the aquariums themselves, and this is deliberate: a submerged plant would draw nutrients at the expense of the edible plants in the beds. Decorative elements serve as hiding places instead, which the crayfish need just after moulting, a period when their shell remains soft and the other residents could injure them. The beds, meanwhile, are filled with clay pebbles, a medium that holds the roots and houses some of the bacteria, and an overview compares the different grow media suitable for aquaponics.

The choice between the two formats comes down to the available space and to foot traffic, more than to budget. The Grand Baromate, 2.10 m high by 1.50 m wide, takes up an entire stretch of wall and is intended for a reception hall or an open-plan office that people pass through all day; its two aquariums and two planters hold 15 to 20 plants. The Petit Baromate, 1.20 m by 0.80 m, fits into a break room, a waiting area or a wide corridor, with one aquarium and two planters for around 8 plants. Both units are 25 to 30 cm deep, so they sit against a wall without encroaching on the walkway. In both cases, keep a clear area in front of the unit so that your colleagues can stop and look, provide a power socket in the immediate vicinity, and check that the floor can bear the permanent load of filled aquariums.

The rental can be chosen over 12, 24 or 36 months, with a monthly rent that falls as the commitment gets longer. This rent covers the provision of the Baromate, the plants, the fish, their food, the water analyses and the maintenance visits. The electricity used and the top-up water remain at your expense. In addition there is an installation service, charged once at the start, which includes the preliminary visit, the setting up and the commissioning. The exact scope is that of the contract signed with AURA Urbaine. The budget should therefore be thought of as a service subscription, including a maintenance visit every 2 weeks, rather than as the amortisation of equipment.

Eleven edible varieties are offered, supplied by partner nurseries in Île-de-France, and you build your beds from this range. The infusion plants include mint, lemon balm, sage and lemon verbena. The culinary herbs bring together basil, coriander, chives and parsley. Finally there are strawberries, cherry tomatoes and mesclun. The selection of the best plants to grow in aquaponics overlaps largely with this list, and the strawberry plant has its own complete guide. Nothing obliges you to mix, and some businesses prefer a whole bed of the same plant so as to have a real quantity at the right moment.

Each plant has its own way of being harvested: you do not cut verbena the way you cut mesclun. Educational sheets are provided for each plant, and the cocooners answer questions when they visit. The most curious can take cuttings themselves, by taking a healthy stem of at least 10 cm bearing three branches, cut at 45° with a clean tool, trimmed back to three leaves, set to root in an opaque pot filled with water changed every 5 to 7 days, then replanted in the clay pebbles. A successful cutting can then replace a tired plant, or go back home with the person who took it, in a simple pot of potting compost.

You rent a maintained ecosystem. After the order, a team visits your premises to understand how the space is used, choose the location and agree the list of plants. About a month later, the technical team installs the Baromate, in a few hours and without blocking the space. After that, every 2 weeks, a cocooner visits to test the water, prune the plants, clean, check the condition of the fish and replace whatever needs replacing. Between visits, an intervention is triggered by a simple call, usually within 24 hours.

An aquaponic system does not produce from the day it is installed, which sets it apart from a living wall delivered already planted. The nitrifying bacteria take 3 to 6 weeks to establish themselves, depending on the room temperature, and only once this colony is in place do the plants find in the water the nitrogen they need. During this period, the maintenance team tests the water more often, the fish stocking stays modest and the first plants grow slowly. Let your teams know about this delay at the time of installation, so that picking begins when the plants are ready. Once the system has stabilised, regular picking encourages the herbs to regrow, whether basil, mint or lemon balm, which branch out after each cut.

The Baromate is installed in businesses of all sizes, from small firms to large groups, as well as in hotels and shops. Rent is generally treated as an operating expense rather than as a capital investment, a point to confirm with your accountant before putting the application together. For a head office, a coworking space, a school or a local authority, a dedicated article explains why aquaponics makes sense in a shared space.