Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

http://wesa.fm/post/fish-and-plants-come-together-shipping-container-downtown#stream/0
Non-AP friend on Facebook helping to keep my interests alive on Facebook.

KATIE BLACKLEY / 90.5 WESA
Downtown Pittsburgh’s newest structure is perhaps one of its most unique. The Aquaponics Project unveiled its portable unit Wednesday next to the Gateway T station.

Aquaponics is the marriage of hydroponics, the cultivation of plants in water, and aquaculture, fish farming. The 160-square-foot mobile unit will be at its current location until mid-November.

Joe DiPietro is the Chief Operating Officer and founding member of The Aquaponics Project, which is based out the University of Pittsburgh. He said he first heard about the idea from his friend Vinh Luong, who founded the organization. The two found partners in the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership’s “Beta Burgh” small business initiative, Pitt’s Innovation Institute and the city’s Door Campaign. All provided funding and support for the project.


CREDIT HOW TO AQUAPONICS
The unit is a shipping container with a Plexiglass second floor greenhouse. DiPietro said the ground floor will have fish swimming in a tank and as they excrete waste, the water becomes nutrient-rich, providing fertilizer for plants. After passing the water through a number of filters, it will be pumped to the top of the structure where plants will grow in vertical towers. From there, the water will trickle down the center of each tower, providing nutrients to the plant’s roots. At the same time, the plants will be removing anything that could be toxic for the fish and the water will return to the bottom clean.

“You have a closed loop system where you can serve all the water and all the nutrients while minimizing the energy and land use,” DiPietro said.

Ultimately, The Aquaponics Project is meant to inspire small farmers or urban agriculturalist to build similar structures.

“The difficulty with aquaponics now is it’s difficult to get into because there’s a lot of trade secrets and know-how that goes into building a system,” DiPietro said. “So we’re just trying to make that more accessible to the general public by creating the research facility where we kind of standardize aquaponics practices.”


Joe Dipietro, 18, of South Oakland, is the COO of The Aquaponics Project, which was founded by his friend Vinh Luong. Both are students at the University of Pittsburgh.
CREDIT KATIE BLACKLEY / 90.5 WESA
The unit’s location was chosen based on the ease of land, sun and water access. DiPietro said at their ribbon cutting Wednesday, they weren’t completely functional, but expected to be soon. All the unit was missing, he said, was a pebble-based filter that would take the sentiment out of the fish waste.

Once the container is moved back to Oakland, DiPietro said The Aquaponics Project can begin to conduct quantitative research. Because it will only be downtown for a month, they won’t be able to grow enough to collect a sufficient amount of data.

Good to see this sort of thing come up again and perhaps find out whether there's been progress of some sort.
This might interest you Brian

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=12701&hilit=aquaponics+shipping+container

Here's something else that's similar -

http://www.climate-kic.org/case-studies/urban-farming-start-up-demonstrates-aquaponics-vertical-growing/

and here's one in Berlin -

http://phys.org/news/2014-05-berlin-start-up-fish-farm-veggie-garden.html

The downside to those shipping containers is the fact that they are not insulated and it can cost quite a bit to insulate them well enough for winter...plus then you reduce your space available. I have seen a couple setups in a container and it gets tight real quick.

Temperature control could be an issue- containers feel like ovens in summer, even with the double door wide open, so insulation will need to be added, preferably on the outside to avoid loss of interior space. The hothouse will need controlled shade and ventilation too, otherwise the plants might cook in hot summer weather. I can't see any obviously openable windows on it.
Side by side would be better for energy use, rather than stacked, as that requires a higher head (and energy use) pump. They could put a solar array on the roof and a battery to make it energy independent, just requiring a water supply.

It annoys me when people call it 'closed loop'- it ignores the fish feed that goes in!

I'm not sure about the "Trade secrets", maybe they have not heard of BYAP!

How do they get up to the green house? A waste full stair case? Can they transport something so tall? I guess if its going to snow they can slowly travel to somewhere it isn't before the roof caves in or they could pitch the roof to say 45 deg.
Yes Gordon they could have fold out solar panels on each side of the top of the container to capture power, provide shade and temporarily store stuff outside

Pete.

It is framed up and clad on the inside of the bottom container. Insulation? Who knows.

Looks like a couple of uni students on a steep learning curve. Good luck to them, they have a nice research project there that someone else is putting money into.

Yeah it shouldn't be too hard to get sponsors to provide a solar panel system for such a publically interesting project.

Pete.

Gunagulla wrote: "It annoys me when people call it 'closed loop'- it ignores the fish feed that goes in!" I agree. I actually get this question once in a while, "Do the fish feed the plants and vice versa." I suppose it can't help to be clear. hehe most people get it though.
Petesake wrote: "How do they get up to the green house? A waste full stair case? In one picture they show guys on a ladder.
Brian Wrote: "It is framed up and clad on the inside of the bottom container. Insulation? Who knows." This project must get a lot of questions so that is a good thing too.
My question is also, how in the heck do they move it? Surely they need to drain it. And then there is that extreme height... Perhaps it could have been build as a tandem trailer, or several and they could circle the wagons?

Since it's sitting so far from the driveway on grass I reckon it was placed there by a crane. I doubt a craned container carrier trailer would reach out that far with that stone barrier in the way.
If they intend to show this to the public then they're going to need some decent steps to get to the green house, maybe they bolt on to the outside a ladder would certainly not be good enough.

Pete.

If people think you need to climb a ladder to do AP, it might turn people off it, rather than attract them. Also, the container and greenhouse look like a way to add a whole lot more expense to an AP system.

Hmm, seems like a system using PODs storage type containers modified for AP growing (clear top and wall but insulated back would work really well depending on cost). Note the way these don't need a crane, but you would need truck access. They are 8 by 16 which is the right dimension for a solar heated greenhouse.

https://www.google.com/search?q=moving+pods&biw=1280&bih=638&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiR9-ugpePPAhXBqFQKHXogCLEQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=_

It probably would have been better to use something like a large tandem trailer 8' x 12-16' that is fitted with slide out beds and FT above and in front of the axles. They could then erect or fold out a green house over that. Every thing would be at ground level, transport would be easy and it would seem doable by the general public.

Pete.