Aquaponics Set Up

This is our trial run for aquaponics.  While there are many designs possible, we took a little from here and a little from there and combined them to make the most efficient use of our current resources and our bank account.

I took the frame design idea from a PDF publication that I found online called Barrel-ponics by Travis Hugley.  Last year when we were still in the early stages of research, we saw an ad for some 55 gallon barrels for $10 apiece.  I know some people can get them for free, but I thought $10 was a decent deal, so I bought 4 of them.  They have been sitting in the back shed for the 6 months, though I have used them on occasion as saw-horses for various projects.  LOL

I split them in half and cleaned them out.  In fact, after I cut them, I left them open out in the rain for a week or so to really make sure that any of the former contents were washed out.

As you can see, the two half-barrels sit open on the frame, which rests on cinder blocks.  The drain system is based on a bell cyphon.  There are lots of YouTube videos on how to build them.  Mine is made from a 1" stand pipe, with a 2" bell cyphon and a 3" rock guard.  Under the barrels, the standpipe drain is a 90 degree elbow, a 1' extension pipe, and another 90 degree elbow with extension.  This drains directly into the tank below.

The cheapest tank for the fish that we could fashion was a 50 gallon, plastic storage box that we got at Wal Mart for $20.  However, since it is not really made to handle the weight of the water inside, I had to reenforce the sides using two wooden slats and a ratchet tie-down.  Otherwise, the weight was causing the sides to bow out.  Hint: this works, but may not be the best tank; choose wisely my son.


The pump was a simple 210 gallon/hour pond pump that we picked up on Amazon for under $35.

I connected a splitter to direct the pumped water to both barrel halves.  The cycle for the water is about 8 minutes to fill until the bell cyphon kicks in; then it is about 1 minute to drain.  The constant ebb and flow of the system brings oxygen in between the medium (river rock and hydroton) for the roots of the plants and also oxygenates the water for the fish.

Water draining into "tank" from bell cyphon; this brings filtered water to the tank and oxygenates at the same time.

We bought the fish (12 goldfish to start) for .27 cents apiece at Pet Smart along with fish food and test kits for ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, pH, and alkalinity of the water.  Eventually, we will make a transition to Tilapia, but we figured that the gold fish were expendable in case we screwed up something.  However, at this time I can report that the fish are darting happily to and fro as they explore the depths of the "made-in-china" plastic Wal Mart container.

Happy Fish.

We let the system run for a week without planting or adding fish in order to make sure everything was working correctly and to allow the chlorine and hopefully whatever else they add to city tap water to burn off.  In addition, we did add two full cups of vermiculture tea (red wiggler worm pee) to the water to spike the nitrogen levels before we planted.

Many of our plants were donated, but we picked up a few more from the WM.

And... that's it.

In the future, I may go into more detail about how aquaponics works, but there are plenty of sites that explain the process.  For us, we are very excited to start down this road of self-sufficiency.  Yes, we are just starting and no, I don't think that we will grow enough in 2 grow beds to feed my entire family - as I stated, we just started.

Here are some pics...

My son feeding the fish.

First day (night) after planting: cucumber, crook-neck squash, green bell pepper, and some different herbs.

First day (night) after planting: cabbage, herbs, tomatoes, and cucumber.