Aquaponics anyone?

[muskrat24]

A couple weeks ago CJ mentioned aquaponics in one of his posts. I've always been interested but with numerous projects, and an lack of a budget for one I only got into the research phase. I got to looking around what I have and a spare 55 gallon aquarium, shelving unit and some concrete mixing tubs I had pretty much all the essentials for an small aquaponics unit. I figured it would at least give me an chance to get my feet wet in the hobby. I'm still not fully setup with needing an grow light and some other fine tuning.

This is two weeks ago when I first got it setup. I now have another grow bed and an grow tank for duck weed.



The grow beds work with bell siphons:







Here is the second grow bed before I added the gravel:



Here is the first growbed with the original mint plant. And now added with some basal and green pepper plants:



The fish portion of my aquaponics unit is 12 minnows, 12 goldfish and one insanely resilient feeder guppy.

[Brad H.]

Cool project! For those of us that don't know much (if anything) about this can you explain the basic principles of this?

[histopicker]

I think it is awesome you are giving this a go. Have a Karma sir!!

[farmertrappe]

Cool, interesting project. I've done some research on the subject and have been interested also.

[muskrat24]

Brad Aquaponics is a hybrid of hydroponics (growing plants without soil) and aquaculture (farming aquatic creatures). Most setups are larger using IBC tanks and the fish of choice is tilapia. But you can grow catfish and other edible fish or you can use other high waste producing fish like goldfish. Basically how it works is the water from the fish tanks are pumped to grow beds. The bacteria in the grow beds convert the fish waste into nitrogen compounds which the plants feed off of and filter the water for the fish. As long as this setup works out, which its looking like it will with how well the mint plant is doing as soon as I get a few acres to work on I'll be upgrading to some IBC tanks.

For anyone who doesn't know this is an IBC tank:

[Deleted]

Apr 17, 2015 22:19:27 GMT -5 muskrat24 said:

Brad Aquaponics is a hybrid of hydroponics (growing plants without soil) and aquaculture (farming aquatic creatures). Most setups are larger using IBC tanks and the fish of choice is tilapia. But you can grow catfish and other edible fish or you can use other high waste producing fish like goldfish. Basically how it works is the water from the fish tanks are pumped to grow beds. The bacteria in the grow beds convert the fish waste into nitrogen compounds which the plants feed off of and filter the water for the fish. As long as this setup works out, which its looking like it will with how well the mint plant is doing as soon as I get a few acres to work on I'll be upgrading to some IBC tanks.

For anyone who doesn't know this is an IBC tank:

I can get these 250 gallon tanks from work for free. My neighbor uses these for his set up, in his greenhouse. It's a pretty slick setup, and seems simple. He does tilapia, bluegill and perch, and just runs each with a simple magnetic pump. It's something I've wanted to do for quite some time, and I think I may be trying it this year.

[topper]

Wow!
Learn something new everyday.
Thanks.
What is the history of Aquaponics, who first developed the idea?

[SkFarm25]

Looked at doing this last year myself, watched hours and hours of You tube videos on different systems, My pond isn't really good quality for fish so this looks like a great way to have fish and grow some plants year round. Thanks for sharing!

[muskrat24]

Here is the final setup. With the T12 ballast and grow bulbs finally in place.