This is a quick cheap and easy way to get some practice at producing your own food. Aquaponics is great because it lets you grow healthy fish and plants faster than normal and with little maintenance.
My reason for building this project was to get practice and learn about any problems that will come up before making a bigger system.
My reason for building this project was to get practice and learn about any problems that will come up before making a bigger system.
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Signing UpStep 1: Get Materials
Materials:
-Steel cart and some steel bars
-Plastic bins that cover about the same area as the cart
-Larger, deep plastic bin
-Water pump with a roll of tube that fits it
-Bag of pea gravel
-Plastic colander
-Scrap plywood
-Gallon milk jug
-Whatever type of fish and plants you will want
Tools:
-Welder
-Hot glue gun
-Water proof glue
-Knife or scissors
-Shovel
-Steel cart and some steel bars
-Plastic bins that cover about the same area as the cart
-Larger, deep plastic bin
-Water pump with a roll of tube that fits it
-Bag of pea gravel
-Plastic colander
-Scrap plywood
-Gallon milk jug
-Whatever type of fish and plants you will want
Tools:
-Welder
-Hot glue gun
-Water proof glue
-Knife or scissors
-Shovel
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Do you know how you feed it to the fish? That is what I have not figured out for sure. Do you gind it up and feed it to them as pellets, mabey with some other thinks mixed in?
I enjoyed your post and hope to try this out at some point when I have more space. Thanks!
- you need to run your system to start the nitrogen cycle. don't add plants or fish immediately. if you want them to survive.
- check your water quality. a simple test will be leave a glass or water where it can get sunlight, with few days you can see algae growing, then its safe, Note this is a crude test.
- your drain system can be improved. the water level in your grow bed will be low. you have to plant the roots deep. or you can use a bell siphon to raise the water level and drain completely.
nice reading your post,
By the way, how much did this cost? Its seems it was mostly cheap or scrap/salvage material.
Thinking of doing my own one of these...
Nice instructable, thanks for posting
P.S. Here are a couple links to some sites on keeping native fishes. Though one is on bluegills, the requirements are nearly identical.
http://brushyland.com/tank.htm
http://railrunner42.tripod.com/
It looks pretty safe with regards to filtration area, but I'll bet your fish died a few days after these photos. That's because there wasn't enough nitrifying bacteria to break down the Ammonia from the fish waste into Nitrites and then the Nitrites in to Nitrates. The plants are likely to use the Nitrates that the bacteria produces in the last step of the Nitrogen cycle, not the Ammonia or the Nitrites, which are both toxic to fish.
If you added the aquaponics to a healthy fish tank or matured the system as if it were a fish tank you'd have a stable system much quicker :)
Nice project!
Fish from a farm generally are healthy.
Wild fish can carry parasitic flatworms or disease.
I caught a 1,lb Large Mouth Bass with a three-foot tapeworm in it.
You can get catfish, trout, bass, salmon and many other spices from a farm.
Most places outside of flood zones permit controlled pond release.
Some requirements to have your system of holding inspected to make sure they don't escape into the wild.
Check with WDFW for more info.
Otherwise well done.