Our retention pond in our neighborhood has a lot of algae and problematic plant growth due to the surrounding farms and lawn runoff, so we’re experimenting with a floating island to pull nutrients out before they can cause problems. This will also provide some interesting flowering plants, and more fish habitats.
Will be an interesting experiment to see what survives and what does poorly.
Zinnias, sunflowers, marigolds, and a few others are in net pots, inserted into cutouts in EVA foam mats.
Design is from:
http://www.beemats.com/
More reading:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/flowers-grown-floating-on-polluted-waterways-can-help-clean-up-nutrient-runoff/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666765723000637?via%3Dihub
Not less steps; this is the OG aquaponics method and has been around for hundreds of years. Everything else is just refining for efficiency and space limitations.
https://www.milkwood.net/2014/01/20/aquaponics-a-brief-history/