Three-day boot camp at Aquatic Research Center highlighted aquaponics, applied agriculture, and veteran outreach

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Six veterans who provide agricultural education and outreach across the United States recently came to Kentucky State University for a three-day Aquaponics Train-the-Trainer Boot Camp designed to deepen their technical skills and help them carry aquaponics education back to their communities.

Hosted by Kentucky State aquaponics experts at the Aquatic Research Center, the training blended classroom instruction with hands-on learning, giving participants a comprehensive look at aquaponics system design, management, economics, and outreach.

Aquaponics combines aquatic animal production with plant production in a recirculating system. Fish waste provides nutrients for plants, while plants and related filtration help clean water that can be reused in the system. For beginning producers, educators, and community partners, the model offers a practical way to connect water quality, food production, biological systems, and agricultural entrepreneurship.

Over three days, participants studied topics central to successful system operation, including system design, water quality management, fish health and disease prevention, species selection, fish processing, budgeting, financial planning, marketing, and best management practices.

Classroom sessions emphasized both the biological and business sides of aquaponics, reinforcing that successful production depends on understanding how fish, plants, water, equipment, labor, and markets work together.

Hands-on sessions moved that instruction into practice. Participants built a media-based aquaponics system using an intermediate bulk container, or IBC tote, working together on layout, plumbing, component installation, and operational planning.

The project gave participants direct experience with system construction while also helping them think through the decisions and troubleshooting skills needed to teach aquaponics in other settings.

“This was very beneficial and eye-opening,” one veteran participant said. “The system design was great and helped me foster understanding of whole-system thinking. Great work.”

That concept was central to the boot camp. Rather than treating aquaponics as a collection of separate tasks, participants examined how water quality, fish health, plant growth, system design, labor, finances, and markets all affect one another.

The Aquatic Research Center (ARC) is the teaching and research facility for Kentucky State’s School of Aquaculture and Aquatic Science, the University’s Program of Distinction and one of three schools within the College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources. As an 1890 land-grant university, Kentucky State connects academic, research, and Extension expertise to practical education that serves producers, educators, and communities.

Kentucky’s only dedicated aquatic research complex, the ARC includes 33 research ponds, a 3,000-square-foot hatchery that supports spawning, holding, and experimental tank work, and a 3,500-square-foot nutrition laboratory with wet-lab space for aquarium studies.