Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So we're back from sunny Florida. I paid for the "Behind the Seeds" greenhouse tour of the hydroponics at Epcot. It was very very cool. First they covered a little about pest management and showed videos of parasitic wasps and how they breed them in-house. I got to see the aeroponics tomatoes whizzing around on their conveyor thing. About 50% of the time they are inside a half wall with nozzles spraying nutrient solution on the roots. They weren't misters or foggers or anything fancy, just looked to be nozzles to me.

I really liked the trellises they made up for spreading out a single plant. They were made from what looked to be steel fence tubing (like Les' greenhouse), then with guy wires and turnbuckles, then a lot of nylon twine, all making a rectangular net to support the plants. The tomato "tree" is in the Guiness book of world records, it has produced something like 30,000 tomatoes.

The tomato, eggplant, and pumpkins were all growing on that kind of trellis/arbor. The pumpkins are supported by nets. There was a picture of one that had been grown to 500 lbs. They also have Mickey Mouse-shaped moulds that they use to grow Mickey-shaped pumpkins. You can also use blocks, and apparently they grow rectangular watermelons in Japan for space savings. I may try putting blocks around my watermelons this year.

The PVC NFT things were made by heating straight pipes. The holes looked to be pinched by some square-shaped thing.

In the aquafarming section they are growing hybrid tilapia, bass, Malaysian prawns, eels, sturgeon, and catfish. Their tilapia were really big and made me think that my little tank will not be big enough for fully grown ones! They use the Zeigler Bros feed too (their mill is/was 20 minutes from here). Thoroughly enjoyable tour!

We also went to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. This was kind of expensive (like $18) but it was worth it. I was really impressed by their displays. They have a 500,000 gallon reef aquarium with like a 12 foot acrylic wall. The freshwater section was interesting, they had an owl sitting on a branch that would just sit there and look at you and some otters, etc.

I had the neighbor feed the fish every other day while we were gone. I had two pet store 12 hour feeders going but they held about enough for one days feeding. Two fish were dead when I checked on them. My pump hoses get restricted with biofilm and have to be blown out so that the siphons work properly. I cleaned them out good before I left but they had slowed enough during the week that the siphons didn't start anymore. I figure (reckon?) that they had been trickling for a few days at the end of the week and the reduced oxygen killed the two fish. When my siphons aren't working they don't get aeration (other than the little bubbler) and no water turns over into the beds.

The hoses are cleaned out and working again, I don't think any more will be dying on me. The dead ones were 5" and 6".

Dead fish:

I like those spirals...

Nice, sorry about the fish though.

Thanks GF, none have died since then knock on wood.

Been thinking about my system since coming back from vacation. I haven't eaten any of the lettuce for a couple of weeks and it really needs to be cleaned out. The green peppers are looking pretty good and are starting to flower, the basil almost touched the light bulb and I am scrambling on how to make pesto to do something with it and plant something else. Anyone have a good recipe (I googled one but one from y'all would be better)? The little broccoli sprouts are being shaded by the basil and haven't grown much. The Thai peppers are getting too tall even though they are under the light.

This weekend I am going to clean the beds out and tidy it up. Thought about what vegetables I like most, in order:

1. broccoli (I could and have eaten this every day for lunch before)
2. Tomatoes
3. Lettuce (can find a use for this pretty easily)
4. Green beans
5. Green peppers

All others (besides rice, wheat, corn, and potatoes of course) we don't eat very often and I have to make an effort to fond uses for them. Our CSA shipped the first bag this week, and we got several things that we will have to learn to put into the meals (a couple were Chinese vegetables).

I have been pondering about the greenhouse design; I want something interesting if I'm going to make the effort to build one from scratch. I work for a CAD company whose customers are mostly architects and I feel obligated to do one right, design-wise. The budget is not large, however.

After seeing the trees at Disney I would like to have at least one of these hooked up to the AP system. I could use a tomato and some kind of melon "tree". The wife likes cataloupe, which would be neat to do.

Gary's "run to waste" system has been making a lot of sense to me lately, because I look out at the sunny days when I'm at work and it seems really stupid that I'm paying boucoup bucks to run the MH grow light. I am looking at the possibilities for scalability with my system; this is what I'm thinking ATM:

The system can be throttled up and down, relative to the coupling between the plants and fish, for energy use, sunlight availability, temperature differences, space reasons, etc. There are several configurations that I can use right now.

I. Run to waste, no plants. The system would be like a huge aquarium. A large biofilter would handle the solids filtering and ammonia conversion. Nitrates would build up in the system. As needed, AP water would be drained and replaced with fresh water.

The AP water could be thrown out, used to water dirt-based plants in the house or outside, or the water could be allowed to evaporate into a concentrated organic fertilizer for use later.

II. Low light energy, limited plants. I could replace the 400 watt MH grow light with the four 40 watt fluorescents I already have but haven't used. I could start seedlings and grow maybe a little bit of lettuce with this setup. I think it would be useful this time of year to set up the system this way to grow up plants for the dirt garden, to be transplated in June. The AP system would easily grow up seedlings to be transplanted within a month. The nitrates would still build up enough to require water changes; the AP water would be beneficial for a limited number of plants.

III. High light energy, insufficient bed space. This is where I'm at right now. I don't have enough bed space to keep up with nitrates or grow large plants like tomatoes, etc. The cost for the electricity for the light is not worth the amount of plants I'm getting.

IV. Heat exchanger transfer of water to/from outside. With the warm weather we have now in the Spring, a heat exchanger should be able to remove the heat from the indoor water and heat up the outside water on the return trip. If I had the gear to do this I could spread out a lot more AP plants in containers and beds in the back yard, and try a tomato tree. As long as this is done in mild weather, a greenhouse should not be necessary, although one would be nice at least for shade or wind protection.

VI. Heat exchanger to cold frame. This would work up until the coldest weather, maybe up to November and starting back again in March.

V. Heat exchanger transfer to greenhouse. I believe this would work even in our coldest weather, but the greenhouse would have to be sturdy and insulated.

I could see using all of these during the year as it warms up and cools down, as a way to make a very extended dirt garden season. Max fish load would be timed for the max plant load, meaning late Summer/early Fall or at the regular harvest season for everything else. For example, even though there is a greenhouse, in the late Summer the greenhouse would be surrounded by outdoor plants that are also AP-driven.

These are arranged more from least expensive to most expensive hardware-wise, but the cost of operation needs to be factored in as well (as well as water availability). The cost of operation is what is bugging me the most right now as I'm not using the big free light bulb in the sky...

DD have spent a while reading ur thread, AGAIN. You could be an aussie, with the dialogue you use.
Firstly, downloaded google sketchup per ur advice from another thread last night. Thanx.
Secondly, we have never seen a pic of ur yard and how much outside space you have. What is ur block size? And why don't you guys put fences up for property boundaries?
I continue to be amazed by the lengths ppl in cold climates will go to to grow stuff indoors/under lights. Must cost you a freakin fortune. Makes me more appreciative of our milder climate here, and admire ur dedication to the cause.
You have a nice basement that seems to house AP and not much else. Time to keep the fishtanks there, heat their water and pump that water thru the wall into ur greenhouse and stretch ur growing season with reduced reliance on fossil fuels for heating, my man. Vents and fans will reduce that summer heat in ur GH and i reckon you will be amazed at how long ur growing season is, if you keep your fish 'indoors.' You would be pumping warm water into a GH enclosed growing area. Add some thermal mass in a way that doesn't detract from potential GB area and you corner the local market for fresh lettuce out of season!
Thinking on the run here, perhaps ur power is so heavily subsidised that cost of growing indoors is not prohibitive ( but it is enviromentally unsustainable.!)
Keep pushing ahead with that outdoor plan and keep us informed.
Tragic.

Hi TT,
We don't have fences in our neighborhood because the yards are big. Ours is 3/4 of an acre in size. We know where the neighbor's yard starts from a fence post in the back, on the one side it lines up with a small tree in the neighbor's front yard and on the other it's just a straight line - you can usually tell just by the difference in the lawn mowing!

I am currently using a grow light because I am growing warm water fish and don't have a greenhouse. The fish are in the basement to keep warm, and I'm looking for a way to keep them there and still cycle water to the outside, even in weather that is too cold for the tilapia (I wouldn't feel comfortable with them lower than 20C). As a guide our Winter temps could get to -10C easily for extended periods.

There is significant humidity in the basement too ATM; if I indeed dialed back the indoor plant operation (and plan to turn down the temps from 84 to 80 as well) it would help with that.

Dave, I toured that Epcot bio shelter last year and isn't it awesome?

Thanks for posting pics. I took about 40 and never posted them. What was your favorite, I'm curious what you thought? I had a couple favorites. The Tilapia tanks of course were excellent, and the alligator tank. I also liked the aeroponics and the upsidedown suspended plants. I wish I had a controlled greenhouse that size to play in!!

What are your plans for a greenhouse? Is it in your future?

I forgot to mention the lettuce wall, that was pretty cool too. They mentioned it holds 700 heads in the space a dirt garden would use for some much smaller number.

I think the "trees" on the arbors were my definite favorites; it's enough to rejigger my plans for how to grow some plants in the system. I had assumed that any tomatoes I introduce would have to be isolated in their own containers because they are so large - the tree reinforces that way more than what I had been thinking. They could be so large as to exist in their own wing.

The aeroponics doesn't impress me as much because it seems so robotic and hardware- and energy-intensive.

The greenhouse plans are ongoing (see long post above). I am working out the foundation ideas first - the framing and skinning will follow from that. I need more tank volume, pumps, planters, beds, and plumbing, and by the time I purchase those there won't be any money for a greenhouse. I am seriously thinking about a big concrete-lined hole to put thing into. Imagine a big cement block hole with a greenhouse on top, some kind of plates and grids for a floor over the fish... Our next-door neighbor has a large koi pond like this. It would be way cool to put a floor and structure on top and make it AP.

The lettuce wall was cool. Agreed on the aeropnics which is why i never tried, but just the fact that roots exposed to the air could flourish. They must be using some super sauce to get those results though....can't imagine much of what was being grown was organic. Our tour guide was a geneticist intern and couldn't answer when I asked.

The arborium was defintaly cool too. I was impressed that it all grew in sand.

The whole time I was envisioning that river flowing through the whole bioshelter being filled with tilapia and basically both sides of the shelter being watered from that source.

I ddnt read the above post on GH sorry, but now I am getting where you are headed. I like the concept in your last post about digging a sub concrete lined hole or "basement" under the greenhouse. That I believe has alot of potential for thermal and solar efficiency. wow..... great concepts Dave....

I bet if you cut the stem on the tomato tree it would spew nutrient solution everywhere. There has to be some serious rivers of fluid going through the stems...

If I won the lottery I would build a big clear shell and have a pond and plants and fish, and live in a grass hut inside like it was Hawaii all the time.

I'm also thinking about the tidal concept from the other thread, and nesting some rubbermaid tanks into an alternating flood and drain dealio. I checked the dimensions a minute ago and the 50 gallon should nest in the 100 gallon (JP would know because those are hers, edit: hers is 150). Imagine the 50 gallon with pots and gravel in it nested in the 100 gallon, two sets of these alternating F&D with the other one. Or maybe nested concentric tanks like I mentioned before but with gravel in the middle instead of fish. I'm paralyzed with too many options ATM.

I know that feeling to well, LOL. So many ways to go, designs to attempt. I'm sorry but gravel is just too fun to be moving about all the time.

Hi Dave,
Similar problem here but slightly warmer winter temps, down to about -6C
I`ve had a design for a long time and it will be reality before too long.
I may have to "borrow" your concentric tank idea as it`s perfect for this

Start with an energy efficient shape.. a geodesic which reduces the exposed surface area.
Insulate the entire northwall and perimeter foundation and then double or preferably triple glaze the rest.
Then make yourself a partial geodesic thats slightly smaller but construct it out of rigid insulation board with a internal foil face.
This internal partial geodesic can be rotated internally (pretty much like an observatory dome) to cover the glazed portion which increases the insulation value tenfold just when you need it most.. at night when the sun don`t shine

During the daytime the internal geodesic insulation is "parked" on the northwall effectively doubling the insulation value on that wall, while the glazing is earning it`s keep by making the most of any daytime solar gains.
A simple external photocell can open and close the insulation layer automatically at dawn and dusk.

Use your 400w MH for supplemental light ..the dome shape will act as a huge reflector if you hang it in the middle.
It will also contribute a good percentage of your heating requirements.

Ideally use a low profile rather than a standard geodesic. Aim for a large footprint to enclose maximum thermal mass underneath, and keep the overall height within reason to avoid increasing the surface area.

Even with lows of -10C you won`t need much (if any) extra energy to maintain reasonable internal temperatures.

Not an easy beast to build granted, but no more expensive than the standard glass box designs that cost a fortune to heat.

You did say you`d like something "interesting"

Hex, that's very interesting, maybe too interesting for the neighbors haha. You might enjoy this project that I was reading about a couple days ago:

http://www.midcoast.com/~bo/InnertubeForms.html

I might also dust off the nested tanks, as the cheapest biggest ones I can get easily are shallow round tanks (8' x 2', or 6' x 2'). Not for the basement, though.

http://www.tractorsupply.com/detail.asp ... 53&x=0&y=0