My aquaponic adventures

[luxton]

“a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle”… I haven’t heard that before, I really like that. It’s gonna be one of those things that’s stuck in my head forever, haha

Yes, in the warehouse I was in contact with the local DFO and once setup they would be doing an inspection. Tilapia was going to be my species of choice and its not local anywhere around, so they need to tag any importers in case of release. Before setting up the warehouse, I went to a course in Florida that used to be offered by Pentair. It was run by a bunch of PhDs and was focused on aquaculture. They had a separate day for me alone that was focused on aquaponics setups. It was one hell of a experience!!

Sept 20, 2017

And the people in the pet store selling you fish think they know about overstocking

Just little tilapia, lol

Sept 21, 2017

Their outdoor aquaponics fish setup was incredible.

Your biofilter is ready when your nitrite (I think… Nitrate? I don’t remember now… I may be a little baked ) level is spiking and your nitrate (or nitrite) and ammonia levels in the tank are zero. At that point, if you pH is in range, your water is going to be pretty solid and should feed your plants and handle small changes (like a fish dying and you missing it for a day) without an issue.

My current setup, I honestly haven’t measured the pH. When your water is good, the system is good… So, as long as your biofilter is living (this takes a solid 6 months), you can measure it for your own interest, but you’ll be good.

I was reminded that during blooming, I add a measure of cheated iron and potassium phosphate. When my water is good, I add 1 measure of each, the cheated iron turns your water kind of orangy. Then, 5-7 days later, depending on the number of plants, your water will be clear and you’ll know its time go add more.

In one of the setups I did for my mom, she had 6 fish and ate at least 1 piece of fresh lettuce everyday she had it running (on top of a 3’ tall pot plant, and other stuff, lol). I’ve done watermelon, I have strawberries in my tent right now with my plants… Kale… Umm, all sorts of stuff, I can’t remember what else now.

I’ve seen a couple sandponics builds, it looks messy to me, sand gets everywhere, I don’t see how it won’t end up in pumps eventually. Just my take though

[crunkyeah]

@luxton

Yes, in the warehouse I was in contact with the local DFO and once setup they would be doing an inspection. Tilapia was going to be my species of choice and its not local anywhere around, so they need to tag any importers in case of release.

pretty much the main reason i haven’t jumped into aquaponics yet. sourcing a food fish i’ve found is a bit tricky because of ‘regulations’ but i think goldfish combined with local prawns could be a decent alternative.

i’m a bit jealous of your experiences! i bet they were awesome to see everything at scale and working smoothly.

@luxton

So, as long as your biofilter is living (this takes a solid 6 months),

do you test your water weekly to make sure everything is on track?

@luxton

I was reminded that during blooming, I add a measure of cheated iron and potassium phosphate.

ahh interesting! i was curious if nutrition could be added if plants were found deficient without hurting the fish and it seems that is the case, very cool. do you think it’s possible to amend the fish’s diet to produce more of whatever element you’re missing? say potash or phosphorous? instead of adding the chelated minerals

@luxton

I’ve seen a couple sandponics builds, it looks messy to me, sand gets everywhere, I don’t see how it won’t end up in pumps eventually. Just my take though

it looks like most of the ones i’ve seen use a coarser sand if they can get it. once everything ‘settles’ they say it works much like lava rock/ hydroton / and drains easily without sand getting everywhere. i don’t know for true though.

does your current system fit in a 4’x 4’ tent? it looks nice and compact and that’s the part i’m trying to design right now, placement of everything, how everything will work, etc.

[Alexander]

@luxton

a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle…

Agreed 100 percent

Exactly what this means

[luxton]

For home stuff, I’m not too worried about fish. Doing the aquaculture side of it is its own beast, with constant measuring of food weight in, weight of fish, calculations with that… It’s a TON of work I honestly never really saw coming. That’s not something I’m wanting to touch, personally. Although, I would like to have a little booth at our local farmers market one year, tomatoes and other veggies .

Sadly, there was a hurricane the week before I was there and most of their actual grow was still wrecked. But, the fish tanks all survived, so to see that much of it was wicked cool.

At this point, I honestly don’t test my water at all. I’ve become pretty familiar with how things look when they’re working right and when they’re not now, so I can just kinda tell. When things do look out of whack, yeah, my “master test kit” comes out.

You can add some nutes, but it’s very specific, because you obviously don’t want to hurt the fish. The best thing you can do, according to that course, is find a fish food with a protein level above 40%. I order mine from a place out east, 5kg or 10kg tubs at a time, lol. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to dropping $115 on fish food, but that’ll last a year or two if you treat it right.

I’ll have to check out some more sand builds… Do you have have any I particular that you really like?

Yup, it’s in a 4x4. The fish are in a 32g bow front, the grow bed is on top of the stand for the tank, pump are underneath and the garbage can is on a little stand so its return is over the tank lid. If I were to do it again, I’d have a different outlet on the garbage can do it wasn’t so high and I’d have a grow bed resting on top of that. The can I’m using now is the original one from my first fridge build, it’s been holding water almost continuously for almost 7 years now… I should probably replace it soon anyway 🤦.

If you have any drawings or ideas for yours, I’m more than happy to talk about them and see if I can help out!

[luxton]

A good reminder to not trim too late into budding… I cut of little twig with a popcorn bud off yesterday and it seems to have killed the entire branch

[luxton]

Also, I was wrong on what I was adding… Cheated iron and potassium carbonate… It’s a little hard to read in the pic.

[crunkyeah]

@luxton

Doing the aquaculture side of it is its own beast, with constant measuring of food weight in, weight of fish, calculations with that… It’s a TON of work I honestly never really saw coming.

now is this in a retail environment i assume? not sure i would be doing all that with a small 120g stock tank and maybe 40 fish. do you need to do all of this calculating for food and whatnot with a home system too?

@luxton

You can add some nutes, but it’s very specific, because you obviously don’t want to hurt the fish. The best thing you can do, according to that course, is find a fish food with a protein level above 40%. I order mine from a place out east, 5kg or 10kg tubs at a time, lol. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to dropping $115 on fish food, but that’ll last a year or two if you treat it right.

one of my future plans to alleviate dependence on outside sources for food… just have a bin with duckweed growing constantly. every day you could take a handful of duckweed out for feed. food for thought ^^

@luxton

Do you have have any I particular that you really like?

since it’s a new thing in aquaponics i haven’t seen too many setups which i would want to copy. as much as i like the sand (for cost and utility) i think a larger biomedia is ideal. i’m going to do some brainstorming and see if i can’t come up with a good solution for some of the problems that sand has where a larger media wouldn’t have problems.

one of the cool things i think is that aquaponics doesn’t have to be a huge industrial operation. i want to figure this out on the cheap before i go with a big (100g+ stock tank) setup.

[Magu]

Hey @luxton. I have a 600 gallon poly water tank that is buried in the ground. I cant use it for drinking water because worms got into it through the defective lid and died. It is contaminated but would be great to use as a fish tank. I would like to water a small garden plot. I can carry water in a 2 gallon water can. So my question is - What is the most simple set up to grow fish and water my garden. I want to avoid machines and equipment as much as possible. Thank you.

[luxton]

Oh man, you just described my dream scenario, lol.

I’ll get back to you with more details when I’m not quite as baked as I am at the moment, but… The simplest would be to pickup a pond filter, throw in fish, give it a month to cycle and start grabbing buckets of water… The key is the fish food, you want a minimum of 40% protein to produce good quality poop.

I’ll get back to you with a way better plan in a bit

[luxton]

K, 600 gallon, man oh man

Depends how much work you want to do, really. If you want to be manually watering, then you can probably get by with what I said before, that will absolutely do you, just be sure to keep the water full.

But, if you want to do some work … Look into air lift pumps… With an air lift (a regular pump would work as well, air lifts are just really cool, lol), you could push the water out to your plants… Now, if you fill your planters with coco or something inert, you could pump water out to the top of your planters and plumb the bottom to return straight to your fish… A totally self sufficient outdoor garden . Add water and food to keep the fish going

[Magu]

Like a table full of plants on top of the water tank and just pump the water to the table and drains back in tank ?

[luxton]

Could do, or could plumb each planter individually (more what I was thinking) and just have water constantly running through (I have water constantly running through my plants, as long as they have a deep enough bed to have stability, you’re laughing)

[luxton]

Or, if you want to go ALL out, dig trenches from where you want you plants back to the big tank. Lay down pond liner through the trenches. Fill in the trenches with river rock so you end up with a bunch of cool looking river rock lines running though your yard (obviously lay it out so it works for you), then plant you plants where ever you want in any of the trenches… Pump water to the top ends of the trenches so it’ll flow back into the pond and you’re golden, an entire yard, spread out and automated

[Magu]

That idea is VERY cool ! You have given me a lot to think about . I could work this into my bee hive plans also. Thank you.

[luxton]

Absolutely! I’m more than happy to help and shoot out ideas…

The only thing you REALLY need to remember is that plants need water from the fish… So, check for low spots, and have fun

[luxton]

@crunkyeah and I were actually just talking about full yard setups with a pond… He’s the one who got me looking into air lifts

[crunkyeah]

@luxton

He’s the one who got me looking into air lifts

OlomanaGardensAquaponicsSystem

click this link if the video doesn’t work

[Magu]

If I were to use the water from the fish tank in a DWC setup, how often do you think I would need to change the water in the DWC ?

[crunkyeah]

@Magu

how often do you think I would need to change the water in the DWC ?

i think the general consensus is you need to change out 1.5x your water every hour, to keep things from getting stagnant. that’s what i’ve seen to be a pretty staple benchmark. hope this helps!

fyi typically dwc uses the same water and adds air stones. i think they recommend full changes every month, or if you need to.

[Magu]

I have a question that may be stupid but im gonna ask anyway. If a poor farmer was living next to a stream that had fish, do you think that water would contain enough nitrates to be of any value as fertilizer ?