New Aquaponics Forum

[administrator]

New Aquaponics Forum

[watercatwn6535nd]

Is this where we post our aqua stuff?

[LisaM12]

The combination of hydroponics and aquaculture results in aquaponics. How to build one yourself is really easy and it won’t take too long before you can be enjoying the fruits of your labor.
How to build one doesn’t mean you have to know everything about the system but it does help as it explains why certain things need to be included in the final product. For example, you will need a two “tanks”. You are combining hydroponics (growing plants in water or a medium other than soil) with aquaculture (farming fish); you will need one tank for fish and the other for the plants. To connect the two, you will need a pump and some tubing.

Your first step is to gather together the following components:

• Glass or plastic fish tank; 3 to 20 gallon size (1 to 2 square feet for growing per every 10 gallons of water)

• Air pump; large enough to match the number of tank gallons

• Air stone

• Tubing to connect air pump to air stone; approximately 3 feet

• Water pump; needs to lift 18 to 54 inches at 30 to 100 gallons of water per hour

• Tubing which fits outlet on water pump; approximately 3 feet

• Gravel; 2.5 pounds per every 5 gallons of water of the tank and color doesn’t matter

• Grow bed; 3 to 8 inches deep

• growing medium, enough to fill grow bed

• pH test kit and chemicals to balance out the water if necessary

• Heater; optional

• Light; optional

• Plants; these can be purchased after the first cycle

• Fish; can be purchased after the first cycle

If you want to go bigger than 20 gallons you can; just adjust the sizes for the other items accordingly. You will also need some tools; yes, there is some assembly required with this project. You will need electrical tape, sharp scissors and a drill with a ¼ or 3/16 inch bit then also a ½ inch bit.

Assemble the fish tank together by adding the gravel (rinse it first) and prepping the pumps. The grow bed. Drill 1/8 or 3/16 inch holes every two inches in the bottom of the grow bed and one ½ inch hole in a back corner. Place the water pump in the fish tank and set the grow bed onto of the tank; feed water pump tubing up through the ½ inch hole. Allow sufficient tubing to loop around the inside of the grow bed; bend end over and tape.

Add growing medium to grow bed but don’t completely cover the tube. Punch small holes about every two inches in the looping tube. Finish covering looped tubing with growing medium. Fill fish tank with water and plug in water pump. This is an excellent start to your aquaponics. How to make a small one is almost completed.

Connect the air pump and place the air stone in the fish tank. Check the pH; ideal is 7.0. Allow to run for a full 24 hours. Add fish then about four weeks later, add your plants.

[watercatwn6535nd]

I've been away from the site for months but I'll get some video up of my new green house/rabbitry/fish system. I'm running about 4000 plus gallons of water and fully automating it like all my other stuff. I'm pretty excited about having a four season green house and with light augmentation and bees this year i expect full year around honey and pollinating as well. So much money and time in this project but i expect to come into the end of next summer with all my fish rabbit and fruit vegatble production able to sustain virtually all of my food needs with what will be a better varaity than the local grocery store in my small town offered any how. I'm taking advantage of fresh water lobster frsh water shrimp tilapia and fresh water clams in my closed system. Good to hear more of you are thinking about aquaponics. In my test system i found that it was cheaper to buy fish food than to buy nutrients for the pants so its cheaper to operate and you either get the fish for free or the veggies. plus i have a worm bed system in doors under my rabbits that supplies worms for the fish and chickens for a protien supplment and the big bonus is a lot less cleaning up of chickens and rabbits. plus my extra plant trimmings and foods are rabbit and chicken food. I' will do a post on rabbits and making tea from rabbit manure for your nutrient and that you can get about 150lbs of butchered meet from one female rabbit a year. thats about half a cow that is 350lbs and a rabbit lives in a 24 x 30 cage not a field. lots of options for the urban or hobbist farmer.

[Laxmi123]

I think New Aquaponics Forum have so much knowledgeable data and I think it is very useful for everyone,but I don't have idea about that New Aquaponics Forum site,can anyone joined in that forum site means please let me know............
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