Unchained Preppers
General Category => D.I.Y. => Topic started by: thedigininja on June 15, 2015, 11:19:44 AM
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So I'm busy building a small, indoor, aquaponics system for my fresh herbs and to test how sustainable it really is.
I'm going to keep a complete progress log for future projects and I thought that I would post it here for anyone who may be interested or are looking at building one themselves. I'll post all my successes and failures and let you learn from my mistakes.
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That's really cool, I think rah45 was thinking about it the other day.
Please share some pictures of your work.
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So I started with an abandoned 27L fish tank, a 45mm deep plastic tray just big enough to cover the top of the tank and a variable 4w submersible pump.
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I discovered that I had some run off on the underside of the tray that was spilling water outside of the tank so I sealed off the ends with some marine silicone and added a small "spout" from the drainage hole.
Added the gravel (apparently the bacteria that you're looking for in your system prefer a finer grain gravel), prepared tap water (that was treated with store bought water treatment to remove chlorine and heavy metals), a couple of plants (that apparently help the fish be more comfortable) and, of course, the fish.
If you know your goldfish you may realize that I made an error in the video by calling them Red Commorants (a large black aquatic bird) instead of Red Comets but regardless they remain sparkly orange nuggets that crap like champs.
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Very Cool :thumbsUp:
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I realized quite quickly that moving the grow bed every time that I needed access to the tank was going to be a pain in the ass so I moved the setup around a bit. I pushed the tray back as far as I could and still keep the drainage spout inside the tank and then screwed and siliconed a wooden rod to either corner of the protruding end to keep it stable. Now I have a good access gap to the tank for feeding and maintenance.
I was a bit worried about the grow medium either clogging or flushing down the drainage holes so I built a "break" on the lowest end with pebbles and marble shards to act as a buffer and added a few extra holes for drainage because the pump was actually filling the bed with water faster than it drained, very nearly leading to a wet living room.
I have also placed the pots that will ultimately be holding my plants to;
A: Test to see how well it draws water up into the pots and
B: Incorporate an additional filter to the system because until the beneficial bacteria takes hold there is a risk of the fish being poisoned by the ammonia in their waste.
The pots are filled with the same layers of pebbles, shards and gravel as the tray. I suspect that I made a mistake by adding the pebbles because I believe that they will reduce the absorption ability of the gravel but I have about 4 weeks until the system is cycled so I'll figure it out by then. I am considering incorporating fabric "wicks" in the pots to assist with absorption like one would use in a suspended grow tank.
Updates may be scarce for the next few weeks as I now need to wait for the system to cycle before I can go much further but I will keep you in the loop if I make any changes.
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APX, I only saw your reply now. Yeah, as you see, I'll be uploading photos, videos and written logs as I progress.
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Interesting, I have thoughts of doing similar so will be following your exploits.
If it works (and it should) I might even buy another shipping container just for use as a "garden".
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So my concerns about the pebbles in the pots were unfounded. Barely 24 hours after introducing the pots into the system the gravel in all the pots are moist all the way through.
I have replaced the gravel in 1 of the pots with expanded clay pellets to test those as well.
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Okay so I will be posting test results of the water quality on weekly basis but I'm ecstatic so I had to share this immediately. I have nitrates! I did a second test to rule out a false positive but that 1 came out the same. It is impossibly quick because by all accounts it should take a month to 6 weeks for the bacteria which converts the ammonia into nitrites and then nitrates to grow and do their thing but less than a week in I have trace levels of nitrates present in my system.
I have a theory as to why this happened and spoken to a fish guy who reckons that the theory holds water, so to speak. It's 2 part.
1. I placed aquatic plants in my tank that came from an established system and I believe that there was bacteria present on these plants.
2. At some point during the night my pump shifted and got clogged by gravel which almost killed my fish but it also offered the perfect environment for waste to fester and bacteria to feed.
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I'm loving this thread.
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Im glad to hear, rah. I have to say that I'm also rather enjoying keeping this "log".
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With the nitrate level rising I had to act quick and get some plants in place. 2 rocket (1 in gravel 1 in clay) 1 watercress 1 thyme 1 celery and 1 strawberry (in the name of science I thought I should include a fruit bearing plant) I will still be adding 1 chives and 1 basil.
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Week 1 water test results.
Day 1 (fresh tank)
NO3 0mg/l
NO2 0mg/l
GH 0d
KH 0d
pH 6.4
Cl2. 0mg/l
Day 3
NO3. 0mg/l
NO2. 0mg/l
GH. 4-8d
KH. 3d
pH. 6.8
Cl2. 0mg/l
Day 5
NO3. 0-10mg/l
NO2. 0-1mg/l
GH. 0-4d
KH. 3d
pH. 6.8-7.2
Cl2. 0mg/l
Day 8 (Day 7 kind of slipped me by)
NO3. 0-10mg/l
NO2. 0-1mg/l
GH. 0-8d (I was unable to get a conclusive result)
KH. 3-6d
pH. 6.8-7.2
Cl2. 0mg/l
Nitrates and hardness are on the rise. Good for the plants and still within safe levels for the fish.
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Transplanting from soil to the inert grow medium was laborious.
You have to gently remove them from the pots and shake of any loose dirt. To get the roots free you need to submerge the plants in a large tub/bucket of water (I used purified water enriched with my homemade plant food) and gently work the soil out, almost tickling the roots to get them loose.
Once you have the plants free you need to get them planted. What I did was place a level of gravel and pebbles, put the roots in and gently top up the pot with layers of gravel.
A few days in and so far no sign of transplant shock.
Unfortunately it was a bit difficult to record the process with a camera while being elbow deep in water and soil.
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I'm loving this!
I've used bubble gardens and drip pots but never anything this complicated.
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for growing hydroponic mesclun mix I put the seeds into a rock wool starter block. Once germinated and rooted (in a tray with a 25% diluted hydroponic solution) they are moved into the grow out frame - a net pot with leca <a brand of expanded clay>. works for me and very low attrition due to root damage. I reuse the starter blocks several times over. just let them dry out and clip any protruding veggie matter before re-use.
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in ponds, I have put my pumps inside an old sock zip tied shut to keep sand and mud out of them. I'm thinking it would work to keep grow media out of the pump. I've heard of some people using a green scrubbie (like a scotch brite pad) as a media filter.
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That is very cool getting nitrates to develop so quickly. the gravel should provide a lot of surface area for the bacteria to work.
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I actually had to go Google what on earth a bubble garden is haha. This is my most complex gardening project so far. My cousin has been successfully farming aquaponically at the BOL for several months even supplying some nearby restaurants with all their herbs but he was just winging it and keeping no records. So I'm attempting to do this in a more scientific manner to gather Intel for a large scale project that we're considering.
I have some starter blocks on their way but I've been waiting forever because our postal service is pathetic. Considered using cotton balls until they get here, I'll let you know how that works out. I'm familiar with leca, it's one of the only brands of clay pellets that's readily available here.
I like the sock idea. I've been worried about the pump clogging up. I have also hooked my pump up to a UPS because we have rolling blackouts and 2 to 4.5 hours a day without a pump just isn't going to cut it.
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It's recommended that you swap out 10-15% of the tank water with fresh water once a month. With the rate that these little crap factories are going at it I decided to air on caution and do it today at day 9. I replaced with water from our filter which we use for our drinking water because it's as pure as one can get without boiling and loosing all the oxygen.
Plants are going strong. Strawberry is sprouting new leaves. I lost about half of leaves on the Rocket in the gravel (all were younger leaves) but what remained seems content.
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I'm having a lot of fun reading your posts on this project.
I have some starter blocks on their way but I've been waiting forever because our postal service is pathetic. Considered using cotton balls until they get here, I'll let you know how that works out. I'm familiar with leca, it's one of the only brands of clay pellets that's readily available here.
starter blocks;
before I decided to jump into the mesclun grower, I used to use scraps from a quilting project. the batting material was scrap - so it was free. the batting is spun polyester - photo at bottom. it worked for germinating but wasn't deep enough for proper transplanting. it didn't last for more than a single use - the growing plant would shred the material rather than grow through it.
please let us know how the cotton works out.
sorry about not annotating the bubble garden and leca.
bubble garden AKA bubbleponics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_water_culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_water_culture)
(http://airtex.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/airtex_thermal_bonded_polyester_batting_404x312.jpg)
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Just so you know Digi, I'm not the only one interested in how this project turns out. My father in law is quite an accomplished gardener, and he is somewhat skeptical about aquaponics. However, he is extremely interested and would very likely jump right into it if enough quality data was available supporting the success of aquaponics, from a source that I actually know. So you keeping such records may end up benefiting more than just these forum members.
By the way, where did you get your info in order to start this project?
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That's awesome, rah.
The end game, apart from building our own full aquaponic farm, will be to supply community workshops with the details so that we can help under privileged communities be more self sufficient.
This project has been in the works for about 4 years. Starting with research and experimenting with hydroponics (initially just with chillies and certain medicinal plants). While we were busy with that we started researching aquaponics, what types of fish to use, other animals that can be introduced, caring for the fish etc. So really the info came from probably a hundred different sources from "complete idiots guide" to blogs and online gardening and fish enthusiast (those guys are weird) communities to actually going out to farmers and fish handlers. There's no one place that I can say THAT is where we got the bulk of our info.
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Good to know. Thanks again for the input.
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Something that I actually wanted to mention in the beginning of this thread is that I am in no way a successful farmer. When it comes to plants and pets I am essentially the angel of death. So if this does work then is all entirely on the system, it has nothing to do with any kind of innate ability on my part.
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That's good to know, so if you can get it to work we all can it seems :)
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Indeed, gray.
Week 2 test results
Day 10
NO3 0-10mg/l
NO2 0-1mg/l
GH 4-8d
KH 3-6d
pH 6.8
Cl2 0
Day 12
NO3 25mg/l
NO2 1-5mg/l
GH 8d
KH 3-6d
pH 6.8-7.2
Cl2 0.8 (I cannot account for this chlorine spike but it was confirmed by repeated testing)
Day 15
NO3 50-100mg/l
NO2 5mg/l
GH 8d
KH 3d
Ph 6.8-7.2
Cl2 0(Back to normal)
As you can see nitrates, nitrites and general hardness are climbing steadily but unfortunately so is pH.
I've realized that will need to build a frame for the system to increase my grow area because the plants that I currently have aren't sufficient to absorb all the nutrients and keep the water fresh enough for the fish. For now I believe that I will just need to maintain weekly water changes (replacing 10% with pure water) to control the levels until I expand the system.
I am getting ready to call time of death on the rocket in the gravel, it never recovered from the transplant(IMG17).
Everything else seems to be thriving(IMG15&16), the celery has grown 4cm since it's introduction. I even have a new addition, 1 of the 3 basil seeds that I just dropped directly into a pot with some gravel has sprouted.
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Thanks thedigininja for keeping us abreast of your results. :thumbsUp:
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Informed is great. Abreast I dunno.
Nemo
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You say Potato I say potatoe. ;)
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You guys keep talking and I'm just sitting here thinking about breasts.
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You say Potato I say potatoe. ;)
You say potatoe I think those things the front part a poor man's feet. I say taters, French fries, smashed tates and other quality southern foodstuffs.
Nemo
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:facepalm: Both of you!
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It's official. My grow space is catastrophically too small for what my 5 goldys are producing.
I got home to find the majority of plants were "burnt". Likely either from nitrates or magnesium, as far as I can determine. The nitrates were off the charts. GH was also frighteningly high.
I immediately drained ⅓ of the water and replaced it with purified water and a few drops of water treatment to mellow out the nitrates. Hopefully it's not too late.
Gravel rocket is gone.
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The death touch continues.
Everything except the thyme and strawberry is gone but the thyme isn't far behind.
Interestingly more of my basil seeds have sprouted.
I'm looking at including a venturi system to increase the amount of oxygen in the water, see if that helps.
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Operation free food is dead in the water, so to speak.
A few notes on this.
This system was based on the absolutely most basic design that I have seen work as an OUTDOOR design. Reduced and brought indoors it was essentially designed to fail.
What the plants were clearly getting enough of was water and nutrients. What they were obviously lacking was oxygen and light.
Light is obvious. Outside you have sun, inside you have none.
Oxygen isn't as simple. Plants absorb oxygen through their roots. Grown traditionally this is easy, with aquaponics it becomes more difficult. With roots that are permanently submerged the plant begins to drown so you need a way to get oxygen to the plants.
There are 2 main ways of doing this.
The most common is what's known as an ebb and flow or flood and drain system where you set up a valve that periodically drains all the water from the growbed forcing the roots to draw in oxygen.
With a wicking bed like mine where the bed is always flooded you need to enrich the water itself with the oxygen that the plants need. Naturally this is done when rain, wind or particles disrupt the surface causing bubbles to increase the surface area on which oxygen can bond and be released into the water, this still might not be enough though. To have a permanently flooded system you would need to incorporate an air pump, this can be used in 3 ways.
1. You pump air directly into your reservoir, increasing the level of oxygen in the water that is then taken to your growbed by your submerged pump.
2. You connect your air pump to "air curtains" which run in the growbed themselves to directly feed the plants with oxygen.
3. This is slightly more complex but can also be more efficient. Using a dual output air pump you have the 1st output connected to an air curtain in the reservoir. The second output you have a length of tubing which runs through the reservoir up to your growbed. In the section which runs through your reservoir you have a hole which sucks in water as the air flows through. This will allow your air pump to pump your, now oxygen rich, water from your reservoir to your growbed.
The size of your grow medium is also important. Where a smaller particle increases the area for bacteria and nutrients it also suffocates the roots. Your medium should be around an inch in diameter.
I have mocked up a few designs for a new multi-tiered system with fittings for grow lights and an air pump and future expansion to run in on solar.
The positives from the experiment so far is that I have determined that it is possible to, quite quickly, establish a system which produces a substantial amount of nutrients with very little input and with only a small number of small fish.
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It's official. My grow space is catastrophically too small for what my 5 goldys are producing.
I presume you are saying SHTB, as in bottom. Missing the fan. SO? Do we begin our freak out head for the hills, lock the door and pass the ammunition or ??
Or is the bottom not as important.
Seeing as this is near 2 weeks old I have to go with the bottom not as important idea.
Nemo
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haha. SHTB is good. The bottom is where the pump can feed it to the plants.
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Ah so its just FITW, (floating in the water) or SAWTOF (swimming around with the other fish) or JOFSWCMU (just other fun stuff we can make up)?
Nemo
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Have you considered doing something like this, outdoors?
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A much smaller version but yes, an outdoor system like that is on the cards once I've completed the mini indoor one.
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I am following this very closely...
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I still want to do something like this indoors, well semi indoors as I have a sheltered area with a translucent roof under trees so mottled sunlight at best.
I'm thinking grow lights powered by 1-2 solar panels placed out in the sun.
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Nomad, I wholeheartedly agree with solar powered grow lights. That's why the next step of this project is taking so long to get into swing. We just purchased a larger fish tank to increase our growing potential to make the financial outlay for the next step more viable.
The new design is a three tier setup with the tank on top, using a standing pipe to siphon water down to the first grow bed. That will drain into the second bed which holds a sump for the water which is then pumped back up to the tank by an air pump.
Each bed will have a designated dual outlet air pump feeding two air curtains running beneath the grow medium allowing the roots to receive large amounts of oxygen while being permanently submerged. As well as a row of led grow lights all powered by solar.
I considered experimenting with a basic hydro power system just for fun but the generating potential from a system this small won't even be worth the effort but it will stay in the design for when I have a yard. As I said though, that part is just for fun. ;D
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Another preppers site I hang out on, http://seprepnet.com (http://seprepnet.com) had a gent just put up some info on his aquaponics projects.
He seems rather successful on it and appears to be functioning well. Might wanna take a look.
Nemo
http://www.oakscastle.com/aquaponics.php (http://www.oakscastle.com/aquaponics.php)
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I don't understand what you were trying to accomplish or learn from this process.
I worked for 1 year in a large greenhouse and I watched the owner plant lettuce and other plants directly in beds of Pearlite - what you call vermiculite. The white pebbly rock made from putting grains of sand into a furnace and baking them until they explode - at least that is what the owner of the greenhouse told me.
Plants that likes a lot of water will thrive with zero soil, while other plants needs some type of soil and not as much water.
The greenhouse was in Western Pennsylvania, and vegetable plants were planted in Feb, March, April - not months really known for a lot of light.
There are plastic greenhouses out there now that looks a lot like children's tents that has two layers of plastic and a blower and some type of heat source that can be placed outside in the dead of winter and used to grow plants - as long as the snow does not break the roof or a wind come along and blow it over...
That is one of those - don't ask me how I know type questions.
The bottom line is - if you are going to bug out - then you should have that type of stuff at your bug out site, not at home. I'm a firm believer that anyone that thinks that they can bug in - is already a dead man.
Urban and Rural - anything along a road, is going to be an easy target for the masses if the world comes to an abrupt halt.
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Thanks nemo, I'll be sure to check out out.
Since I dismantled the original setup we've been using the fish water for our outdoor plants which have been going nuts ever since. Probably the most prominent success is our hybrid chili plant which was little more than a dead twig when we got it. In the heart of winter we have 33 young peppers developing and it has become a beautifully lush green plant.
shadow, you are clearly too dense to realise when you are being purposely ignored so let me make it clear to you. I consciously scroll past any comment that you post because you are quite simply nothing more than a troll. Even though I may not always agree with them I have never actively disliked anyone on this forum because I appreciate and respect everyone here due to their varied situations and views but I have never seen a single positive contribution from you and grown weary of your bs.
I prep for today as well as tomorrow, ever striving to live a safer, greener, more sustainable life and assist others in doing the same. Just because you watched an episode of "doomsday preppers" and went off to play survivalist with your friends does not make you the all knowing master of the universe and, quite frankly, you irritate me to the point that I will no longer acknowledge your existence. Maybe one day you will prove yourself to be more than an old jackass with a keyboard and I'll change my mind but until then I will waste none of my energy on you.
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Well now thedigininja, tell us how you really feel..."Just because you watched an episode of "doomsday preppers" and went off to play survivalist with your friends does not make you the all knowing master of the universe and, quite frankly, you irritate me to the point that I will no longer acknowledge your existence. Maybe one day you will prove yourself to be more than an old jackass with a keyboard and I'll change my mind but until then I will waste none of my energy on you."
:lmfao: :cheers:
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Jmac, every time that I read one of his comments on a post I force myself to bite my tongue and eventually stopped reading them because he simply frustrates me to no end. This morning I couldn't contain myself any longer, I had to get it out.
I'm sure that he has a ton of useful information in him somewhere but I can't tolerate people who never have a positive word to share but rather choose to dismiss everyone else and their views.
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Well, no matter what anyone else says, the fact that you're persevering through the obstacles presented to you in this project says a lot about your character, I think. Well done.