WAS (World Aquaculture Society) Open Engineering Design Spreadsheets

Summary

PARTIALLY VERIFIED — flagged for the gaps log. The survey references open engineering design spreadsheets from the World Aquaculture Society (WAS, was.org — the global professional society for aquaculture, publisher of the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society and World Aquaculture magazine; site verified live 2026-09-12). However, no WAS-hosted page offering downloadable engineering design spreadsheets could be located as of verification; the WAS site structure covers publications, meetings, membership, and education, and its site search does not surface such a collection. The well-documented, verifiable resources in this space come from adjacent US extension channels rather than WAS itself: notably the SRAC 456 "Spreadsheet Tool for the Economic Analysis of a Recirculating Tank System" (RASS, Southern Regional Aquaculture Center — freely downloadable Excel economics workbook with a full teaching document) and Iowa State University Extension's aquaculture water-treatment and monitoring spreadsheets by D. Allen Pattillo, which are cited as standard references in Kentucky State University's Aquaponics Production Manual. These spreadsheets encode the canonical RAS/aquaponics engineering calculations — tank and biofilter sizing, water treatment, feed and oxygen budgets, and cost/return analysis — in transparent, editable Excel form, making them excellent teaching artifacts for seeing how aquaculture engineering math actually works. License terms: extension publications, generally free to download and adapt; no formal OSS license (flagged).

Guiding Principles

STEM Integration — spreadsheets make the engineering math of aquaculture (mass balances, sizing, economics) visible and manipulable.
Transferable Skills — spreadsheet modeling is a directly employable skill; the workbooks are exemplary "engineering in Excel."
Food Sovereignty — free design/economics tools lower the planning barrier for community-scale recirculating and aquaponic farms.

Learning Outcomes & Transferable Skills

Learners build Water Chemistry (treatment calculations, ammonia/biofilter budgeting), Systems Thinking (whole-system mass and energy flows), Data Literacy (assumption-driven modeling, sensitivity testing), Project Management and Entrepreneurship (capital/operating cost structures of RAS and aquaponics ventures). Unprotecting and auditing the example sheets is itself a valuable exercise.

How to Replicate or Build On It

Start with WAS (https://www.was.org/) for the society's publications and educational context; if a member-only spreadsheet library exists, it requires membership (flagged as unresolved).
Download the verifiable adjacent artifacts: SRAC 456 RASS spreadsheet and teaching document via the SRAC/Mississippi State and NCRAC mirrors, and the Iowa State Extension aquaculture spreadsheet set (Pattillo).
Work through the SRAC 456 document section by section, entering your own system's parameters.
For a modern, coded equivalent with cited coefficients, see Agronaut, which contrasts with the spreadsheet approach by being deterministic, tested software.

Considerations & Constraints

Cost: Free downloads for the extension spreadsheets; WAS membership may be required for any member-only society resources (unresolved).
Skill Level: Advanced — assumes comfort with Excel formulas and aquaculture engineering terminology.
Space/Climate: Not applicable (design/planning tools).
Tools Required: Microsoft Excel or a compatible spreadsheet application.
Ongoing Maintenance: None; static documents — but input prices and coefficients go stale, so update assumptions before real decisions.
Access Barriers: The specific WAS-hosted spreadsheet collection could not be verified (flagged); legacy download links in older documents (e.g., FTP mirrors) may be dead — use the university mirrors cited in current publications; English only; no formal open licenses.

Prerequisites

Spreadsheet fluency; basic recirculating aquaculture / aquaponics engineering concepts.

Primary Source

https://www.was.org/ (organization verified live; spreadsheet collection page not located — see _gaps.md)