My Redneck Aquaponics System

[jackalope]

OK, I know I'm slow at getting pics up, so here's some that will kinda show how my system is designed ...... some of these were taken earlier, some later, when I killed almost everything, including my carp (goldfish) .....

First, the whole thing -- takes up about 2'x4' of floor space, but it goes up 11' in the air the 1x2's with the dowels sticking through them, hanging down the sides are for the squash, cukes, and the watermelon to grow up on ..... they all turned out to be minis, so I didn't need to go to all the trouble of making them



Next, some pics of the top level I'm actually planning to go one more level above this, as I perfect the system;









The drains coming from the upper level distribute the water through a manifold underneath the gravel, that I built to be sure that the water flows from the bottom of the grow-bed to the top, making sure that the water gets changed every cycle;





The grow-beds are on the lower level, just above the fish tank; this is the first grow-beds, with a bell siphon, but the 18" of gravel and water bulged the sides so much, I didn't trust it ...



the Bell siphon;



So I went to 6"deep sterilite grow-beds using no-holes siphons;





I had trouble with the no-holes siphon design, it had to be weighted down, wasn't stable, fell apart sometiimes, etc.



So I designed a new one, all one piece, with a sturdier spreader bar .... works great! I will be doing away with the larger one when I harvest the first crop;



And last of all, the fish tank ;





If you look at the last pic closely, you can see the PVC hidey-holes for the crawdads ..... they are pretty fast, I had 10 full grown Guppies including two males ..... I have three females left and a few babies ....... at least the crawdads know how to get themselves fresh supper
I've got a lot of plastic weeds in there now to give the guppies a place to hide so they can procreate and provide more ferts

Now you've seen the 1st experimental system that I've built .... I got more plans, but my wallet just won't let me put those plans into practice My apologies for the differences in the pics, these pics were taken at different times to replace some that didn't turn out, etc., so they're really out of order/sync ...... in that last pic, the second cup in on the left, is the lettuce, that was several weeks ago, and it hasn't got any bigger since!

[badflash]

Looks good, but needs more light. Add a few more fixtures. I use a bulb over each 12" of grow space 1 foot up.

[jackalope]

Looks good, but needs more light. Add a few more fixtures. I use a bulb over each 12" of grow space 1 foot up.

That won't happen here, our light bill just went up by 50% ..... the power company is punishing their customers, so we'll scream at the congress, so they can get their new coal-fired power plant approved I guess we'll just have to do without the lettuce. If I lower the lights the tomatoes won't get any light at all, the tops of the tomatoes are above the lights now ..... a lesson learned, don't grow different kinds of veggies on the same level, make them all the same!

[badflash]

You need to get outside. Make no sense to use artificial like on legal plants. Build that green house!

[jackalope]

You need to get outside. Make no sense to use artificial like on legal plants. Build that green house!

That's another thing the wallet won't allow ...... on Social (IN)Security, you don't have a lot of options , and I live in a town of less than 100 folks, ..... not a lot of job opportunities here

[mpugh5@aol.com]

that appears to be somewhat the way i plan to go,but only using flood grow beds.just got the call to go back to work. maybe things will start happening with an income.

[wolfracer]

Thanks for the pics, I like your auto siphons! When I build more growbeds that is the design I am going to use. Maybe you need more crawdads or fish. Are you seeing Nitrates on your water test?I am thinking of trying to build a system like that above the current growbeds.

[jackalope]

Thanks for the pics, I like your auto siphons! When I build more growbeds that is the design I am going to use. Maybe you need more crawdads or fish. Are you seeing Nitrates on your water test?I am thinking of trying to build a system like that above the current growbeds.

Yeah, I'm planning on more fish, and I'm raising some Marmorkrebs which, according to badflash's posts, will breed well and have lots of babies when they get to size.

The thing I like about the "bottle system" is that it isn't a lot of weight .... I'll make some changes, of course, the drain will go at the opposite end of the grow-beds, rather than right next to the incoming water ...... I've found that the auto-siphon for the "bottle system" clogs up with algae/fish waste/whatever, so it no longer gurgles, but the plants seem to still get plenty of the ferts/oxygen for growth (the upper system is growing faster than the lower now), so I'll be installing a flexible, cleanable, clear hose, rather than rigid PVC. I'm planning on extending the one I have to almost double, and then I will build another for the top rack which will be about 22 cups as well. As I said above, ....lesson learned, I will be growing all of the same size veggie on each level .... lettuce on one level, squash or beans on another, and tomatoes or peppers on another. I realize that this kind of ties my hands on what all I can grow, but if I grow the more expensive or more used veggies, that will cut grocery costs a lot I've got some other ideas too, but I'm not ready to try to put them into practice ..........

[jackalope]

I like your auto siphons! When I build more growbeds that is the design I am going to use.

I'll try to put together some pics of how I made it, as well as some pics of how I made the bell siphon, so that if someone wants to make one similar, it will be easier if they have no plumbing experience. Since I was a jack-of-all-trades (and master-of-none), it wasn't difficult to figure out these things, but some of our members may not have had the same work experiences ...... we're all here to help each other

[jackalope]

I no longer recommend the "gurgler" system! Somewhere back a couple of months ago, [b]JeffW[b] warned me about the roots clogging up the pipes, but I thought I had a handle on that ....... I'll try to post a couple of pics tonite of the tomato roots that were in the pipe and plugged it up so bad that the bottles ran over and spilled water all over everything ........ Don't waste your time and money making one of those systems unless you just like throwing money away . maybe if I would have used 3" or 4" pipe, it wouldn't have clogged, but the 1" was too small for growing tomatoes .

The worst prob was the roots plugging the pipe as they filled out. I am still trying some ideas
out to solve that one. I like the way Sheryl did her setup and wonder if that is they way to
go using cups in an NFT system.

Clik

Here's the pic of the tomato roots laying/lieing/sitting/setting (depending on which part of the world you're from ) on my worm bin: