Aquaponics System: How I built it. part 4

This is the most expensive part. My mommy bought it for my cause she loves me. It was 22 bucks at home depot. It pretty much makes the system. It is an outdoor digital timer it has 28 different settable time events. I have it set to come on in the morning and turn off every 2 hours for 30 minutes and turn off at night. It runs the 250 gph pump in the fish barrrel.

Aquaponics System: How I built it. part 3

When the water drains back into the fish barrel it goes through a venturi that causes a lower pressure by speeding up the water flow. It sucks air in a little hole and aerates the fish water. basically it's just 2 reducer fittings from 1 inch to 1/2 inch and a piece of 1/2 inch PVC with a hole inn it. It's super high tech. I keep the barrel covered to keep the temprature down for the fish. I just use a bungie and an old towel.

Aquaponics System: How I built it. part 2

Once the water drains into the growbeds it goes through the paint cap & lemonade container filters and back into the Fish barrel. The process starts all over again. Here there are paint caps setting inside the lomonade\rock filter. The paint caps are cutout in the center and have holes drilled in it to let water through. A toothpick is in place to keep the PVC pipe from pushing the screen and Bird gravel out. I used bird gravel because it has oyster shells and activated carbon in it.

Aquaponics System: How I built it.

This is an ebb and flow system where a reservoir fills and then floods the grow beds to give more air to the roots. Here the aquaponic system fills the tub from a pump in the bottom of the fish barrel the water rises up until it starts flowing through the PVC into the 2 litre bottle. once it fills enough the weight of the water over powers the weight holding it up which is connected to the fishing line inside the reservoir, the bottle falls and opens the flush flapper valve in the bottom of the tub. The water flushes out through the PVC drain pipes that have holes drilled in them. There are some vases in the tub to control the amount of water flooding into the grow beds.

Aquaponic Pond fish

My son and I went over to our local neighborhood pond with a small fishing pole and a can of red worms. we caught 9 fish for the aquaponic garden. the fish were sun perch and bluegill. We used number 10 mustad hooks and a bobber. Today I noticed that there were only 2 of the minnow type fish we had netted in the pond. The day before there were about 30 of the little fish. I guess perch eat minnows.

Dog poo and dirt garden

So, I decided to add a dirt garden to my backyard due to the fact I had so many extra plants growing. I used the tops of the walmart containers that I used for the plant beds in the aquaponics garden. I had been throwing my dog poop in these 5 gallon buckets for the last 3 years and decided to dump a bottom of dog dooky layer in two of the dirt gardens. I put top soil over the top. the plants seem to be doing well. I'm afraid they might do better than the aquaponic garden. by the way the dog poo was completely broken down and does not even smell like poo anymore.

How to find your aquaponics parts

I was totally amazed that I all ready had almost every thing I needed to put my system together. First of all I was prepared to go scrounging through peoples garbage on trash day to look for baby pools, containers, junk plumbing, junk appliances and any thing that looked that it might have a useful purpose for a part of the system. In my attic I found all these Walmart storage containers that would work perfect for the grow beds. On the side of my house I had a bunch of PVC that I had been picking out of peoples garbage ( That stuff costs money). I recently renovated my house and had some leftover toilet parts of which I needed the flusher assembly. I discovered that these crystal-light lemonade containers (that my wife drinks with her vodka) work perfect as a rock barrier and a paint cap filled with bird gravel fits perfect inside the lemonade container. The paint cap design is my favorite part of the system I will show you in detail how to make them. Yes, I did have to buy some PVC fittings but they were pretty cheap( from 0.21-1.75 each). If you have access to construction sites you could go look around the wast piles or dumpster for the stuff you need. Just keep your eye out for containers and I mean just about all containers. Keep a creative mind so, every time you see some container or piece of junk you go wow that would work perfect for this.

Plant transfer

Today I transferred the last of my plants that I had started in soil. I have heard that it is possible to start growing directly in the medium but I was a little chicken to do that and I wanted to get things started before I had set up my system. To my surprise the plants started to grow like crazy and I had to race to finish putting the system together as I figured things out along the way. today I just transferred my green pepper, cayenne pepper, basil, dill, and some more lettuce.

Aquaponics sketch

After I had watched a lot of videos and read a lot of information about how these aquaponics systems work, I skeched up my own design of what could build with the items I had found in my attic and garage this is a clip of what I drew.

Free Aquaponics system

Well it took me about 2 weeks of finding parts and going to home depot with the leftover parts I had to renovate my house with to get store credit. I have a working system that I for the most part put together for free. I'm sure I could have managed to find all the parts in my garage but wanted it to look a little more nice than the old washing machine parts. This blog will consist off information pertaining to building my own aquaponics system that I learned to build totally via information I gathered from the web. I am hoping to pass free structured information that I got for free on to anyone who is interested and frugal enough to want to learn how to do things for themselves. I learned a lot on this project in the short 2 weeks it took to build it. I know I have al ot to learn about the fine chemistry of the system and how to balance it. I think it will be an exciting adventure in knowledge.