Bedroom Plans

[Kim]

I know I ramble a bit (I'm kind of the stereotypical blond, I've given up on trying to change), and my original post was apparently too long to be 'valid' (lol...), so I'll break it up a bit. This first post is mostly background, feel free to skip it if you're easily bored by stuff like this.

So we were going to build a walipini (in-ground greenhouse) and set up an aquaponics system there. That's still a likely scenario, especially if we do well with what I'm going to outline here. However, hubby wants to start working toward setting up NOW so we've been talking about using one of our bedrooms for this, as our daughter is all but moved out at this point.

With both of us gung-ho on the project, we don't have to worry about appearing crazy to each other (our families are a different story, lol), so we don't want to start small. We first were looking at IBC totes, then gave that up when we realized we wouldn't be able to fit them in the room. So we went to the tank idea...and after bemoaning the fact that we just COULDN'T fit all the grow beds in our house for what we wanted, we downsized our original tank to just under 1000 gallons. Still spills into the living room (maybe 'spills' is a bad choice of words...) but not too intrusive, and I don't have a problem with the size & scope as long as it's a) safe, and b) aesthetically pleasing. Yes, 'pretty' matters, at least inside my home

Our house is on a concrete slab foundation, by the way...there is no way we could do this otherwise. I'm actually a little concerned with the weight on even this kind of foundation, even though it's technically 'strong enough', so if any of you have any input on that I'd appreciate it. Hubby's a cabinet maker, and we've been researching how to build tanks for strength, so while I'm determined to be careful (leaks from a tank that size would be disastrous), I am confident we can construct a safe, reliable container for our fish. Grow beds too.

[Kim]

All I have in the sketchup so far are the tanks and grow beds, put into perspective in our house. I realize I'd be wanting a sump tank, and probably at least 2-3 pumps to handle getting the water where it needs to go. I say more, he scoffs. Anyway, I've done this at a 1:1 ratio for the cubic area of tank/grow beds.

In this first one, it's just a top view to give the overall layout. There's a dividing wall between 3&4 and 5&6 (both those are stacked, if it's not obvious) Link

And here you can see the way it would look in our main living area, which is one big great room Link

Here's looking through the wall of the bedroom (nice to have invisible walls in sketchup) and yes that's a lame representation of a doorway Link

And finally, a closer-up view of the tank cover Link. Some modifications to this - I plan to run a treated beam lengthwise along where the chains are connected from the grow bed, and hinge the cover off of that. I'll likely split the cover into two sections to make for better ease of handling, and both will latch to the grow bed so I can have both hands free when I need to do stuff in the tank. The chains (yes we love chains here...don't judge ) will support the beam and keep it from sagging in the middle, and the cover, when down, will allow me or my boys a platform on which to stand to tend grow bed #1.

Back to the grow beds...there is no way in hell that we could afford that much hydroton, and as we can't even FIND a local source for expanded shale then I doubt shipping it in would be an inexpensive alternative. So crushed granite sounds like a good, if heavy, alternative. We're planning on suspending the upper grow beds from our trusses (chains again) as well as attaching them to our walls, and the bottom ones can have boring legs. Though I'm not sure about the ones in the living room...they'd be putting weight on the same truss as bed #1, so I'll be researching that more thoroughly. There may be a way to spread the weight more evenly throughout the trusses. Definitely don't want to have the ceiling crash down.

So bed #1 would be the easiest to plumb out, and #2 wouldn't be too hard either. 3-6, going to have to have a spectacular pump just to get the water over there with enough oomph to do the job. We have one in our pond that's 1400gph that we could possibly use.

[Kim]

And we've been looking at lighting. The room isn't the best for that, even though it's got a south-facing window, it's in shadow most of the day. Neither one of us want to change bulbs out every 6-8 months, so we're very 'meh' on flourescents. HID or HPS or whatever....he likes them, a lot. I don't, our electric bill is already nuts, and I shudder to think of what would happen if we used those...plus, they're expensive to start with, and they take up a lot of room that could be better used by plants. I like the LED's, yeah they're expensive too but that's offset by the 'cheap to power' and 'go a dozen years before replacing' bit, but then you get into the whole question of how well do they work, and I know hubby isn't all that keen on them, for that reason as well as the odd color that would pretty much bathe that room if we went that route.

But now we're looking at solar tube skylights. Has anyone here gone that route? If they would work for this, I'd be all over that, yeah they're expensive as hell but then NEVER having to pay for the light they give or to change out 'bulbs' would be absolutely wonderful. I realize we'd have to supplement the light in winter, but at that point I'd be willing to go with flourescents, since I would only be using them a few hours every day. Of course I'm unsure of whether this would work for grow bed #4 or #6...and I'm not actually sure about the beds in the great room anyway. A solar tube setup in there would be great, but not sure it'd be efficient enough without building some big apparatus to direct light at the plants, which would detract from the beauty of our home. I'd love to put the lights all through our great room, make it nice and bright...but they ARE very expensive, lol, there's no way, not if we want anything left over for the rest of what we need to do. A few in the main room is fine. Assuming they work...but then, they give concentrated sunlight, why wouldn't they work?

Again I ramble. But I'm excited . I'm glad my hubby's come around to my way of thinking...the whole 'bigger is better' thing. Neither one of us realized just how much room to grow we would have with this tank, until I started sketching it up. My mind is boggling. We'd have enough to feed ourselves and our animals (most likely) just from this...with maybe some left over to give to the food bank or sell at farmers' market.

We want to eat our fish, too, and are planning on getting a breeder colony (selling my car to fund all this, by the way...it's not great, but should be enough, and I don't use it anyway, gas hog that it is). I figure we can set up a MUCH SMALLER system with two tanks, one for the mommies & daddy, and one for the littles, then once the bedroom system is established, put in a set amount of fry every month. That way we can harvest the biggest tilapia on a regular basis, and still have more in various states of growth, so we keep the tank at optimum efficiency. We'll add about 40 or so to the big tank each month, and the rest of the little guys can be sold or if nothing else can be chicken/duck food. Seems like a waste, but it'll give me ammunition to push for my walipini, hehe.

[keith_r]

i'm using regular t8 shoplights (half warm half cool bulbs), at 32 watts each, i'm extremely happy with growth of leafy greens
i'll try some flowering plants in the expanded system

[Kim]

Hehe Keith, we got so stuck on the T-5's that neither one of us even really looked at any other sizes. And the T-5's are rather pricey, but you're right, shop lights aren't. I'd be interested to hear how you do with the flowering plants with them. Honestly, daydreams aside, we'll probably wind up going with the least expensive/energy consuming light source we can get, and that's likely it.

But the solar tubes sound so cool....

[Aquaverde]

Kim,
I have 8in. solar tubes for light in my home and they supply an amazing amount of light.
If I were to use them for plant growth I probably use larger ones. I think they go up to 14in.

[Kim]

There's a hydroponic store near us that has 21" ones, which apparently aren't that common, but 18" are more normal. Very pricey, and I'm not sure it wouldn't be better with a few 14's or even 10's, could space it out better. Of course now that I've been going on to hubby for the last week or so about LED's, he's looking more at them, lol and now I'm interested in the solar tubes...

Where's the head-bashing smiley when you need it? He doesn't even want to discuss fluorescent lights now, lol, so the debate is between sun & led. At least we aren't fighting whether to do AP at all.

Ah well, I still need to figure the plumbing out anyway, and after reading Oliver's 101 posts I guess I'm a little short on grow beds, since we're using gravel. Meh. There's no room to add more, and I don't want to take any more out of our tank, so I guess we'll just be careful with our fish population, especially at first. But we can pipe through the wall (I LOVE having our own house now), perhaps splitting between the 3 & 5 tanks, then siphoning down into the tanks below them. Just have to keep them high enough to get the water gravity-fed back into the tank. Looking at over 10 feet of piping each way, that's do-able, yes? It's all just on paper so far, easy to change at this point, so a sounding board/feedback is appreciated.

Unfinished as my plan might be, I'd rather get it all down on paper and think through any possible difficulties before I actually start building. Makes it much easier if I know specifically what I want my end result to be.

[keith_r]

LED's are still quite pricey, and if you consider the cost/energy usage, the roi was kinda high the last time i checked.. at least that's how i can justify not having any for now.. hehe

best of luck, once you get going, it's hard to stop expanding.. it snowed a bit here today, and more on the way next week.. it's really nice to go down the basement and smell fresh stuff growing