My First Aquaponics System - A How To

Before we get into my first system build, if you're unfamiliar with what Aquaponics is,
READ THIS.
My first do-it-yourself aquaponics system was a lot of hard work but I learned quite a bit and am blown away daily by the results! This write up is meant to give you an idea of the approach I took. I'm not a fan of technical writing so most of the nuts and bolts have been left out. There are many resources online including step by step videos outlining the finer points of the installation, plumbing, etc. The principles are very basic. I encourage you to read earlier posts to familiarize yourself. Enjoy.

I'm one to dive right into something. That's why I decided to build my first aquaponics system with no formal training and minimal forethought. Ha! For me, there's no better way to learn than to jump right in. Over the years, I've learned to expect to make mistakes and embrace them as a learning tool. It's the best way to learn, in my humble opinion.

My first system was constructed with found and recycled materials. I had a large stack of cinder blocks in the yard from a previous tenant which I used to construct a 4 X 8 foot box which was 2 feet deep for my fish tank. These cinder blocks were dry-stacked, meaning that I used no mortar to hold them together. Instead, I used 1/2" re-bar and drove it into the ground between the openings in the blocks to reinforce everything. This way, I could tear it down easily and move it if I had to. Also, I'm one of those "Go big or go home" kinda guys, so a 400 + gallon tank for two 4'X4' grow beds was way more than enough but I wanted to leave room to expand in the future.

This was to be the centerpiece of my new garden, and I wanted it to look nice, so I went to the local landfill and purchased a cubic yard of recycled glass. Many landfills have "recycling" programs now and this stuff is beautiful and cheap. About $30 a yard. So, next I lined the area around the tank with old Tyvek, which is a material used to wrap houses during the construction process before the siding is installed. Spare sheets of this stuff can be found thrown in dumpsters around construction sites. The stuff the glass is on in the pic below is actually an old in-ground pool cover I salvaged off of Craigslist. Most of this stuff can be found for free on Craigslist if you have the patience to wait for it...

Next, I went to the local pond supply place and bought a liner to fit the tank. This one is about 40 mils thick and was about $200. There are much cheaper liners out there, but I wanted this to last for years, so I spared no expense.

Here's my roughed in design. I've got my recycled glass bed held in place with recycled 2 X 4's, my dry-stacked cinder block tank is lined and filled with dechlorinated water, and I've stacked 4 columns across the back to place my grow-beds on. I used old 2 X 6's to span the columns and support the weight of two separate 4 X 4 foot beds. I've planned on getting 12" deep beds to support a wider variety of vegetables. But first, I'm gonna wrap this with wood to make it look nicer... Once again, let's check out Craigslist...

OK, my de-chlorinated water has been sitting a couple of days, I've wrapped the exterior with wood, and bought a double-barrel aerator and two air stones to start adding some oxygen to the water. I also bought a used heating element with a separate digital temperature control/ thermometer readout from the local hydroponics supply house. It was only $10 used and I bought it mainly because of the attached digital thermometer. The heating element itself won't get much use here in Texas... Notice the raised beds in the background made out of railroad ties and the hollowed out keg planters. I'm always on the lookout for things that can be repurposed...

Here's the aerator and heater/thermometer... This heaters acts as a  thermostat and kicks on automatically when the water reaches a certain temperature. Not that it would make much of an impact in a tank as large as this. Like I said, I bought it mainly for the thermometer...

 

Here's the front. And now it's time to purchase the grow-beds and pump. Used, of course.
I'll also be stopping by Home Depot to pick up some plumbing for the siphons and returns...

 

Grow-beds can be expensive. Always ask your supplier if they've got used beds laying around, then get a guarantee that they're not cracked or damaged. My supplier gives me a couple of days to fill them with water and check them out. Here's the used section.. Sorry about the blurriness of some of these pics. I never stop moving!

 

Now that I have the beds and they check out, it's time to do some plumbing.You may notice the home-made raft I made. I wanted to experiment with various seedlings from different plants to see what kind of root growth I could get using Deep Water Culture..





To make the raft, I bought some small planter cups from the supply house, found a used a foam pool raft, cut it into pieces, and measured out where I wanted the planters to go. I placed some gravel and seedlings in shortly after I put fish in the tank, and later transferred them into the grow beds after I noticed significant root growth.

 The rule of thumb for plumbing in your stand pipe, bell siphon, and media guard is as follows:

Your siphon should be double what your stand pipe is. So, if your stand pipe is 1", your siphon should be 2". Lot's of folks suggest using polypropylene instead of PVC because it's safer can be melted straight and glued together with a torch instead of using chemical glues. It's a better idea but for the sake of time and ease of use, I used PVC and the primer and glue that's appropriate.

The first mistake with the plumbing that I made was not following the rule of thumb. I used 1 1/4" PVC instead of 1" thinking I would get a better flow rate out of the bed, which was true,  but I only used 2" for the siphon, so the amount of water building around the stand pipe in the siphon was reduced a bit. This fixed itself later on and they worked fine once I put a timer on the pump. The second mistake I made was actually using the rule of thumb. If you've got big hands, 4" PVC is too small for the media guard! On later models, I switched to 6" and it worked much better for me. You've got to be able to reach in and service your siphon occasionally. For more information on the plumbing aspects of this type of system, YouTube it. Lot's of great videos.

Now it's time to fill the grow beds with media..

After much research, (and lamentation when I found out how much Hydroton costs) I decided to
go with basic river gravel. This stuff is cheap and easy to work with. Although you're getting a hodge podge of rocks, (some of which have a bit more lime in them that I would like considering pH levels) they're  a good size and I like that they've been rounded off by years of tumbling in a river. This makes it easier to stick your hand into the bed and plant or extract things. In the subsequent model I designed for a friend, we used crushed granite which is pH neutral but I still like the way river rock feels. The rocks for these beds only cost me $37 for a cubic yard. If I were to go with Hydroton, which is marble sized clay balls, it would've cost me about $600. Hydroton is the industry standard and it works exceptionally well, but for my first system, I wanted to do it as cheaply as possible. I washed the gravel off in a wheel barrow before filling the beds so I wouldn't foul up my water when the beds emptied back into the tank.

So, I've got my 8" high stand pipe sticking up through the bed using a bulk head fitting, a 2" siphon with a cap sitting over that at around 9" high, and a 4" media guard encasing that and it's all surrounded by gravel now. Now it's time to add fish and inoculate the tank. I used 20 gallons of water from my buddies pond. It's a mature ecosystem and it's been going for years, so I knew there would be plenty of beneficial bacteria in his water to jump start my ecosystem. Just for a little extra kick, I added some Microbe Lift, which is an award winning additive that speeds up the cycling process.

Some friends of mine clean and service ponds for a living, so I called them to see what their schedule was looking like for getting me some free fish and they were on their way to a cleaning that day! That afternoon, they showed up with 50 Koi and goldfish, and we added them to the system. The idea was for them to help get the system going by eating and pooping for a couple of weeks, thus feeding the beneficial bacteria, and getting the nitrogen cycle up to speed before I invested in Tilapia and other fish I planned on eating. As I design more of these, these fish will be traveling from system to system. Here's the running system sans growing media...

Now to plant some food! I started with strawberries, basil, peppers, and a tomato in one bed, leaving room to experiment with various seedlings as conditions changed.

In the other bed, I decided to try something a bit bolder. 
"The Three Sisters are the three main agricultural crops of various Native American groups in North America: squash, maize (corn), and climbing beans.
In this technique known as companion planting, the three crops are planted close together and benefit from each other. The maize provides a structure for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for poles. The beans provide the nitrogen to the soil that the other plants utilize, and the squash spreads along the ground, blocking the sunlight, helping prevent establishment of weeds. The squash leaves also act as a "living mulch", creating a micro-climate to retain moisture in the soil, and the prickly hairs of the vine deter pests. Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the human body needs to make proteins and niacin, but beans contain both and therefore corn and beans together provide a balanced diet." - Wiki

I started the Three Sisters bed with straight seed. Normally, crops like corn and beans take 10-14 days to germinate. Not this time! In A DAY AND A HALF, these had germinated and grown a couple of inches!! Mind blown. Here they are just a few weeks later...

And here's my raised beds I've been watering with a little of the water from the Aquaponic system...Everything is super happy.

Here's the other bed. Things took a little longer to take off in this one because I was experimenting a lot with it. I moved and replaced a number of things, but as you can see, everything in this bed is super happy as well.

 

In this pic, a bean reaches out across the beds to grab some basil. If I were to do this again, I would've planted the corn a couple of weeks before the beans to give it a height advantage, as the beans are growing much faster and need the corn to climb.



Here's another look at my happy beds.

Well, that's it for now! I hope this provides you with a basic understanding of what goes into building a system. There's much more detailed information and some great DIY guides for designing siphons, installing the plumbing, etc. on YouTube.
Keep checking in for regular updates, and thanks for being hooked on 'ponics!

Simply,

Dillon

A DIY Aquaponic System using a Bulk Food Container.

The History of Aquaponics

 

 Long before the term “aquaponics” was coined, the Aztec Indians raised plants on rafts on the surface of a lake in approximately 1,000 AD.
Before the Aztec people had built a great empire in Central America, they were a nomadic tribe in what is today central Mexico. They settled near the marshy shores of Lake Tenochtitlan. Since this fresh water lake was surrounded by marshes and rising hills, the Aztecs were faced with the problem of trying to find a place to grow food. They solved this problem with the incredible ingenuity which led them to become a great civilization.
The Aztecs constructed large rafts out of reeds and rushes they found near the lake. They floated these rafts in the water and covered them with soil which they dredged up from the bottom of the shallow lake. They then planted their vegetable crops on these floating islands that they called chinampas. When the plants matured, their roots grew through the soil and dangled in the water. Some remnants of the chinampas can still be found today in Central Mexico.
In modern times, aquaponics emerged from the aquaculture industry as fish farmers were exploring methods of raising fish while trying to decrease the dependence on land, water and resources.
Traditionally, aquaculture was done in large ponds but, in the past 35 years, much research and progress has been made in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS). The great benefit of recirculating systems is that you can grow up to 3/4 of a pound (.34 kg) of fish per gallon (3.78 liter) of water. This means that large quantities of fish can be grown in a fraction of the space and water traditionally dedicated to aquaculture.
The disadvantage of highly concentrated populations of fish is the large volume of wastewater that accumulates daily.
Early on in the research of RAS, experiments were done to determine the efficiency of aquatic plants in consuming the nutrients in this waste-water, therefore helping to purify the water for the fish in the system. As research continued, terrestrial plants were tested and proven to be an effective means of water purification for aquaculture and this nutrient rich water a nearly ideal hydroponic solution for growing plants.
Although the practices of fish farming and soil-less plant culture have been traced to ancient times, the combination of the two is quite new. Research in aquaponics began in the 1970’s and continues today with several Universities worldwide dedicating resources to further the technology.
For a more detailed read on the modern history of Aquaponics, check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics#History

Media Filled Beds: The Basics

Media Filled Grow Beds: The Basics

Media Filled Grow beds are the simplest form of aquaponics. They use containers filled with a suitable growing media such as expanded clay balls, pumice stone, gravel or something similar.  Water from a fish tank is pumped over the media filled beds and plants grow in the rock media.

This style of system can be run two different ways, with a continuous flow of water over the rocks, or by flooding and draining the grow bed in a 'flood and drain' or 'ebb and flow' cycle.
  

The growbeds should be about 12" in depth as this has been proven to be the most effective depth for plant growth and the cultivation of a beneficial ecosystem in the beds.

Once the water reaches the appropriate level then it will be drained from the grow bed (usually quickly) which will draw oxygen back down into the growbed for the benefit of the plants and microbes.  This cycle then continues regularly and provides the plants with all of the nutrients that they need to grow extremely abundantly and naturally without any added pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers.

Urban Aquaponia of Austin can design and build a setup to fit any space requirement you desire. Give us a call today!

What's Aquaponics?

 

How does Aquaponics work?

The word Aquaponics comes from the joining of 'aquaculture' and 'hydroponics' and whilst it shares certain attributes of both of these systems, it is in itself something far more developed and ultimately, unique from either of them.

Aquaponic systems have three main components - Fish, Plants and Microbes.  The microbes are a commonly overlooked part of an aquaponic system, but it is these that do the most important work in the nutrient cycle.  Aquaponics uses no soil at all but it can use either an alternative growing media such as clay pebbles, pumice stone, lava rock or gravel, or the plants can simply be grown in the nutrient rich waters coming from the fish tanks.

Fish produce waste and ammonia - these are harmful for the fish in elevated quantities and decrease the quality of the water.  In aquaponics, water from the fish tank is fed to a plant grow bed where the billions of naturally occurring, beneficial micro-organisms break the ammonia down first into Nitrite and then into Nitrate.

Nitrate and other nutrients are absorbed by the plants to assist in their growth and in turn, serve to clean the water.  Solid waste will also be filtered out of the water by either the grow beds or some other mechanical process.

Clean water is now returned to the fish tank increasing the water quality and providing the oxygenated water that the fish need.  This is a natural and sustainable process that mimics an ecosystem and produces high quality food without any chemical inputs.

Our systems will pay for themselves in fresh fish, vegetables & herbs.
They are low maintenance, and will provide strong, healthy, fresh food for next to nothing.


Why Aquaponics? Well, if you're still not convinced!

•  Provides the best tasting home-grown vegetables
•  Organically grown produce in your own system
•  No unnatural herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers
•  The freshest, cleanest vegetables possible
•  Uses as little as 2% of the water normally needed
•  Higher growth rates and yields
•  No soil is needed
•  Can be easily used in small, urban areas.
•  Healthy, clean, home-grown fish for your plate
•  No genetic manipulation of the fish
•  Fish are a healthy source of protein
•  Water quality is high, so the taste is high
•  Water recirculation reduces pollution
•  Local production reduces "food miles"
And... It's super fun. And cool.