Organic Hydroponics / Aquaponics

Aquaponics is the commingling of Aquaculture, a.k.a. fish farming, and Hydroponics, growing plants/crops without soil. This instructable will show you a simple method of growing both fish and plants, using easily obtained and/or household items, for enjoyment and beauty or for consumption.
Why should you care?
Aquaponics (AP) is easy and has been used for thousands of years (from Chinese rice paddys to the Aztec water gardens), can be practiced on any scale, consumes approximately 1% of the water in a traditional growing system, and is a great way to learn about closed-loop systems and ecology.
AP can help feed families in dire need of nutrition, with agricultural crops; but also with much needed proteins in the form of fish. This example isn't exactly what a poor family in a third-world country might put together, it is exactly as stated; an example.
The entire earth is (more or less) a giant aquaponic lab; but we're going to start small, in the living room.

Step 1: What You Need

I'm using a simplified "S&S Aqua Farm" version of Aquaponics. I'll go over some different thoughts on AP and different styles of systems towards the end of this "ible."

Tools needed:
Dremel
Scissors

Materials:
Rubbermaid Roughtote 18-gallon storage bin.
~18-gallons of water
~8-gallon "under bed" style tote.
~8-gallons of "pea gravel"
~4-ft of 1/2" tubing
2-liter bottle
End cap for tubing
Twine
~200-gallon/hr water pump with control valve (less is probably fine with a system this small)
On/Off timer with 15-minute intervals
Freshwater aquarium water tester (strips or kit)
Fish (I used 3 goldfish and a crayfish)
Seeds for planting (Fruiting or non-fruiting, lettuces, wheatgrass, it's all good)
Short stand or table that can hold ~80lbs or more.

If you had to buy everything for this as new, it would probably cost ~$30US including the fish and seeds but excluding the stand/table and test strips. As it is I had everything on hand except the pea gravel, so this cost me about $0.75 to make.

Options (not necessary for the purpose of this Instructable, but very valuable additions to AP in general):
Aquarium heater
Thermometer
Uninterruptable Power Supply (battery backup)
Grow lights, CFLs work fine (if growing away from sunlight)

Comments

[Ghost Wolf]

You have to feed the fish right?

[jimmiek]

I have an extra 20 gallon tank and raise guppies, I throw some into the tank evey few days - you should see the Tilapia go after them - a couple of dozen guppies can disappear in seconds - those that make it to the floating guppy grass don't come out often! Other than that. I feed them a High Protein, High Fat commercial fish food (no chenmicals or mendicants) so they are as organic as possible! They reach market weight (1 to 1 1/2 lbs) usually within 6 to 9 months if I am diligent enough to separate the males from the females. The females grow at a much slower rate if they are allowed to get bred as they hold the eggs/fry in their mouth for 2 - 3 weeks without eating! and they can breed again within a week or so after letting the fry out on their own if they aren't watched closely.

[Arbitror]

Fish can't only absorb food...

[chuckr44]

"1 pound of fish per gallon of water. " That is WAY WAY too much fish per gallon of water. The rule of thumb is 1 inch of "slim bodied fish" (like a danio) per gallon of water. And your goldfish need 5 gallons per inch of fish as they are high-waste producers. I'm surprised the author didn't know this as s/he seems to understand the cycling process.

[jimmiek]

It all depends on what you're doing with the fish and fish tank. If you're running the water thru a growbed, (biofilter) and changing the water 6-7 times an hour (350 GPH pump with a 50 gallon fish tank and 100 gallons of growbed), it's fine to have that kind of GPF, but if you're just using them as aquarium fish, you're going to kill them with that kind of GPF. Raising plants and fish in AP is a whole lot different than having an aquarium in your living room to look at and enjoy all the cute tropical fishy's! Goldfish (carp) are a two-year grow-out to get them to market weight, Tilapia are 6 to 9 months! 5 gallons of water per inch of fish would bankrupt an AP producer - that's not being realistic! Read up on what professional fish farms are doing, don't go to Petco for info, those little books are for persons raising pets at home, not for AP farmers or pros! AP fish farmers don't raise the fish to look at, they raise them for food! I don't know too many AP fish farmers that eat Danios ;>) I guess I should have specified that we use high capacity pool pumps, not aquarium filter pumps that are more like 20-30 GPH if you're lucky :>)
I might also mention that we drop the water into the FT from the GB since it picks up oxygen when it is splashed in rather than pumping it directly into the water via a pipe and then trying to add air with airstones, etc. We drop it from one GB to another, picking up oxygen along the way. Our fish are not stressed, nor are they lacking oxygen.

[bhsx]

Actually I was wrong and edited that section. The correct ratio is 1 pound per 2 gallons; but I also noted that it should be avoided. My original did note that I didn't find that acceptable, and my density is dead on with what you mention. That 2:1 growbed/tank and 1:2 lb/gallon are ratios for very intensive farming meant to feed as many as possible with as little as possible, and is done successfully with tilapia in the Caribbean.

[chuckr44]

Sorry, I didn't know that stocking level was for intensive farming methods. That would certainly be different from the casual hobbyist due to different methods of controlling waste.

[theawesomeninja]

http://public-library.ponics.org/documents/aquaponics/Small-Unit-Aquaponics-Paul-Range.pdf
This claims it can stock up to 1 pound per 1 1/2 gallons.

[amishjim]

Hydroton is not that fun to clean either. I ended up nailing together some 2"x4"s into a 2'x3' frame and skinned one side with wire mesh/screen with holes just smaller than the Hydroton. Like a flat colander. It sits on my wheelbarrow and now I have a screen to filter my compost, too. I bought a small pressure washer just for tasks like this. Makes cleaning sooooo much easier and faster. Good luck and thanks for the info. It's been almost 2 years, how's it going?
~Amish

[Rune Cutter]

Hey bhsx, thanks for hitting my reset button, I looked into this a couple of years ago and then let it go, getting ready to fire up with tilapia and maybe red claw crayfish, waiting on compatability info, I may have to sextion of the tank, looking into muscles too but it may be to hot for them in West Texas.

[jimmiek]

I do aquaponics in the summers here in Montana, the 2:1 ratio of growbed:FT is right, however, when you have the right GB/FT ratio, the amt. of fish/gallon can be increased. I had 200 fish (Guppies) and 4 crawdads in a 50 gallon Rubbermaid tank with about 100 gallons of growbed all summer long ..... it worked fine for me ;). The amt of danios/gallon is for a regular aquarium, not for an AP system. Don't let anyone snow you bhsx, what works fine for you is right for you I have 1 pound of fish (tilapia) to 1 gallon of water right now with a biofilter acting as a growbed! ....... Great Instructable to let newbies know about AP!!

[Toulouse]

so we can grow veggies and fish! im feeling a DIY sushi night!

[The_pyrogeek]

Haha :)

[DanielSedgwick]

http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/education/documents/ConstructingSmRASForclassroom-SRAC4501.pdf

[blizz86]

blaghh i hate arugula, :) great idea, doubles as a filter and veggie farm

[wilson.joe]

thanks for your instructible.. I'm digging up all the info I can.. and this will come in very useful...

[adam1av]

I thank you, and wish you well on your next system. I think your fish tank is understocked. the one I am building is 300 gallons fish water and 150 gallons grow bed. I plan on stocking 100 tilapia fry, after cycling the system. I have personally seen great systems running at lower stocking rates, in Main, of all places. Oxygenation is required. The more fish the better in my opinion, with the appropriate grow bed area. Thanks for letting everyone know that washing your gravel is necessary. Many have tried to start a system without doing that and failed miserably. I will post with photos as I get things running. Food for all and all for Food. good work, thanks again, AV

[bhsx]

Hey great to meet you AV... What are you using for your tank? If you're in the US I'd guess a Rubbermaid 300-gallon stock tank... If so I've been eying those for a while! Yeah, my tank is understocked. This was my first attempt at AP as a demo for the family, it was successful enough to "get permission" to build a "real" system when we move. So I'm happy with the results! Please do post some pics and maybe a full instructable if you get the chance... Take care.

[lemonie]

China is currently suffering it's worst drought in half a century. It's farms are using 2/3 of of it's water supplies and are not that efficient. "Notoriuosly inefficient " is how they were described in NewScientist 21st Feb 2009. L

[bhsx]

From New Scientist: "China's biggest need is to reduce water used for growing food: its notoriously inefficient farms use two-thirds of the country's water supplies. According to Junguo Liu of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, about 1200 cubic kilometres of water is pumped from rivers and aquifers to irrigate Chinese fields each year. Unless efficiency improves, he predicts that figure will rise by a quarter by 2020 as demand for meat grows - meat production needs more water than vegetables and cereals" They're talking about traditional farming in the article, not rice paddys (I think you were referencing the article because of my describing rice paddys as a type of AP). Aquaponics could certainly help quite a bit; but most likely it would have to be done on as a grassroots thing there, with people relying less on traditional farming methods. I do think that China would have the ability to build massive AP systems over a period of time; but it would most likey still be secondary to traditional growing for a long time. Thanks for the comment!

[lemonie]

I like the idea & Instructable. The comment about Chinese rice paddys was meant by way of "don't hold these as a good working example". Inefficiency is to a large extent a case of where the water's coming from, going to, and leaking out of the system I should think. L