What do you predict about the quantity of energy the producers take in compared to the quantity of energy that goes out?
Fish as primary producers -We predict that the amount of energy that the producers take in will be greater than the amount of energy that is released from the producers in both of the aquaponics systems. The amount of energy that the fish take in will be more than the released energy because of the second law of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics states that  "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state."
What do you predict about the quantity of energy the consumers take in compared to the quantity of energy that goes out?
We predict that the quantity of energy that consumers take in will be less than the quantity of energy that goes out. This is because only a fraction of the producers energy is transferred to consumers on the next trophic level. Â An example of this is that as the plants take up the ammonia from the fish waste and only a fraction of the usable energy will be available to the next consumer and so on.
What do you think are various ways that producers and consumers could lose energy?
Both producers and consumers lose energy during cellular respiration. For producers-Fancy Guppies , energy will mainly be lost through movement, cellular respiration, heat production, and growth and development. For consumers, energy will mainly be lost during growth and photosynthesis.
How could you estimate the amount of energy lost through these various pathways?
One way you could estimate the amount of energy lost through various pathways are by counting the amount of calories the fish are fed in each aquaponics system. You can also  estimate the the amount that is excreted as waste, by using the approximation of decreasing by 10% through each trophic level, and then estimating the amount that bacteria will consume . Another way of counting energy lost  through various pathways is by estimating the energy transfer efficiency between two successive trophic levels which is termed the trophic level transfer efficiency (TLTE) and is defined by the formula:
TLTE=production at present trophic level/production at previous trophic level x100.
