Anyone have any experience with aquaponics?

I originally posted this in another forum and was told this would probably yield better answers and advice.

First off, if this is an old topic/subject I appologize, I'm new to posting on forums and I couldn't find anything on here about aquaponics.

I'm new to smoking MMJ as well... didn't even try it until I got REAL sick...

This is a little insight into my grow setup and how it came to be.

Like alot of you fellow MMJ patients and potsmokers alike, I decided to grow my own medicine instead of paying a lot for a little.

I started out trying DWC in 5 gal buckets with 6" netty pots, I knew nothing, and killed the clones within a weeks (WAY too cold, PH WAY off, etc.)

Than I tried dirt... I figured thats the easiest way... and the plants actually didn't die... YAY ME...

But being the bored person that I am with too much time to search random things on the net, I decided to go "Diferent". I seen some things here and there on gardening (not 420 related) sites about "Aquaponics" so I got curious.

Hydroponics: the cultivation of plants by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil

+ Aquaculture: the cultivation of aquatic animals

= Aquaponics: the cultivation of plants by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil AND the cultivation of aquatic animals IN THE SAME SYSTEM!!!

I thought that was pretty damn boring at first... ok, so they've combined a hydro setup with a fish tank... big deal.

But I kept reading... This concept is actually getting pretty big in australia...

You never have to change your water, just add what evaporates out, I'm not going to go into depth about why that is, do a search for backyard aquaponics to learn more, they explain it really well with videos.


My little dirt plants are doing good... growing under a 200w cfl, nothing spectacular, just little baby weed plants.

Than one day I get a knock at the door, a good friend/fellow cultivator fell into hard times and to make a long story short he needed to use part of my grow room that was empty for a couple weeks with an ebb and flow setup on a 6 foot table. No problem, thats what friends are for right?

This turned out better than I could have imagined, he brought over a friend of his, I call him the minion. The minion cleaned and organized the entire room, sprayed an organic pestacide, and helped me with a lot of other things.

My friend and his minion also helped me to learn why my DWC plants died, what I needed to do different (all opinions I know but they've grown weed, I haven't) and A LOT of tips and tricks of the trade.

...I'm sorry if this is too long and boring, I am smoking right now some really good hash...

Through some friends and craigslist, I've aquired: 1000w hps w/hood and bulb, 1000w switchable w/hood and bulb, 4' 8 bulb t5 with both sets of bulbs, 200w cfl (6500k) w/hood, 2.5' x 4' hydro table, 4' x 8' hydro table, 80 gallon tub for a rez, 55 gallon food grade barrel (a friend of mine found it on the beach), and a bunch of little things, a couple of parts ballasts, etc

I got bored (happens alot) and after a couple of small, successful, attempts, I decided to try a large (large for a 2 bedroom house) aquaponics setup with goldfish, MMJ, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, marigold, basil, and catnip.

The reason for all the other plants, is that there is a lot of "wasted" space it seems like on a hydro table unless you run a sea of green. To me it just seems logical to grow lettuce between the plants when theyre 3-4' tall the plants can't use the light once it goes passed thier leaves. I hate wasting things that I pay for especially (electricity)

This setup will undergo many more changes I bet, I don't think I will ever get a setup that I like perfectly.

The current setup I have going is a CHIFT PIST system, with both grow tables going (4' and 8'), 80 gallon rez, 55 gallon barrel, 1000w hps, 4' 8 bulb t5 alternating 2700k and 6500k bulbs, one 70 gallon per hour pump and the biggest air pump walmart had it's for 60 gallon tanks I think and has 2 outlets.

In the 4' grow table I have a bell siphon, and the entire table has around 6 inches of lava rock NO netty pots, all plants are planted directly into the lava rock. and about 3 dozen live redworms, I read they

In the 8' table all of the plants are in netty pots (or some other pots that I made into netty pots) with lava rock.

The t5 is above the 4' table, the 1000w hps is above the 8' table.

with everything running the room stays between 70 and 80 degrees, I have an active exhaust system with a dual squirel cage fan i got at a garage sale, and a passive intake from outside going through a furnace filter.

when the plants are around 6-10" tall in the 4' table I grab the stalk and pull straight up, out comes the plant and a very large root ball with a few lava rocks here and there stuck to it, it goes straight into a 6" netty pot, topped off with more lava rock.

from there they are put into the 8' table which also has a bell siphon.

The 55 gallon barrel is the fish tank, I have 18 goldfish around 2" long each in it.

The 80 gallon rez has one goldfish in it, it jumped out of the net and landed in the tank, I wasn't going to drain 80 gallons of water for a 10 cent fish... I feed it when I feed the others.



The way this setup works:

water is pumped from the sump (80 gallon rez) to the fish tank (55 gallon barrel)

the fish tank has an over flow drain that empties into the 4' table (so the fish tank water stays the same height and never changes

when the water reaches a certain height in the 4' table, it self siphons into the 8' table

when the water reaches a certain height in the 8' table it self siphons into the sump


The reasons I like it:

It works

I don't have to spend a lot of money for nutrients

I don't have to change my water, only top off what evaporates out it uses 90-95% less water than a hydro setup

I like fish and eventually I'll add tillapia to raise and eat



I've rambled on enough and I'm starting to sober... i'll add pictures when I figure out how.

Let me know what you think, right now i've made it to having 8 mmj plants in the 8' table that are around a foot tall, with more in the 4' table.

any and all questions concerns coments are welcome!

 

Some pics of the plants today... They have grown an average of 1 Inch each in 2 days

 

For sure, I wish I could take better pictures but the lights I have running create lines through the pictures I take. so I have to wait until the dark cycle, 3am to 9am. since my grow is in my house I don't have to worry about huge temp changes when the lights are out...

but, I want to take pics... and I have a hard time getting up at 9am lol...

a few updates:

I took another 1000w hps and turned off the one screwed to the ceiling so I could hang the other by chains just below to get closer to the light.

I have fans running blowing gently over the plants oscilating, but the plants started to droop badly.

At the same time I lowered the light for the plants, I raised the high water level in the 8' table.

So, tonight/this morning I took the hanging light back away and turned the top hps back on.

I did not change the water level back though. I believe if theyre drooping because of the high water level, the plants will adjust themselves accordingly, and if they do, i'll put that light back down to them.

And I REALLY hope it's not something else...

 

this is because I didn't read what I wrote before posting:

so the 1000w basicly went from being 6' away to 2' away, I really don't think it's the light that's making them droop, but I needed to turn the 1000 watter off that was on the chains... the hood is hardwired (correctly not some jack legged operation) into the ballast, it's a very old ballast, that gets VERY hot even running it on 220v.

please noone comment on the 220 vs 110 and the cost savings... I've read some of the ignorant comments on here and other forums...

 

I just realized what time it was and that I could take pics right now...

 

I almost forgot the pics of the worm feeder







The lid is made from 2 flower pot bases and the holes are offset when puting one inside the other. This acts like a light blocking vent. I sprinkle a little peat on top of the frozen veggies to keep from molding before the wormies can eat them

 

The ONLY big worry I have with this system is that I don't know whats going to happen when I change that timer to 12/12... I have thought about at minimum doubling the amount of fish. right now I only have about 16 tiny goldfish in this system. I would like to get my hands on some tilapia fry, but noone within a 3 hour drive has any.

 

I like that Idea, however I think I would worry about the larva turning adults and having a bunch of flies in my house... lol

My grow setup is in my house, I don't have it in a seperate building like I want.

I am looking into somewhat of the same thing your talking about with scraps but instead taking only certain foods, no red meat, no citrus, no spicy foods, no processed foods, basicly fish veggies and fruits. mix it in a blender with some gelatin and cut into cubes when ready.

from what I read its kind of like a time release feeding. I need to either get bigger fish or wait until mine get bigger before I do that, I would have to make TINY cubes otherwise.

Thank you for that bit with the larva, I will look further into that when I get my seperate sheds (one for grow, one for bloom)

 

This was a post on aquaponics in a different forum, thought it should be added to this one.

 

Also from josephspare21

Aquaponics - YouTube

 

Update:

Got into town today and got lady bugs, an auto feeder for the fish, and some neoprene discs for cloning.

I released about a hundred lady bugs. (the pack said there is around 1500 in there) I'll save more for later and give some to friends.

On the top of the fish tank (blue 55 gallon drum) I drilled 4 holes 1 1/2" each and positioned the bubble wand under them. I have 4 clones setup right now, I'm going to see how well the bubbles work instead of the sprayers and a pump. I clipped all the leaves in half, I read a post on here somewhere that said to cut the leaves so that there wasn't as high a demand put on the stock to bring nutrients up.

I'm trying this method against just dropping them in the short table between the lava rocks. Surprisingly that is actually working, I haven't kept acurate track but so far it seems to be at around a 60% success rate (again I am guessing)

I use no root tone or any other stuff like that for clones... In the short table I just cut them with dikes and drop them in between the rocks, with the fish tank I just cut them with dikes and put them in the neoprene and in the holes. I will mist every now and then and that's it.

I will post pictures when the bright lights are off.

 

Awesome setup, great choice of a name as well. I really think you are going to enjoy this type of growing. I have so far.

I do have a couple of questions for you:

how is your bell siphon working?

is it consistant?

what are you doing to suppliment the lacking nutrients (I can't remember off hand but I think its potasium that you won't get with this setup alone)

I'm glad to see someone else is interested enough to try this type of grow.

Please post on here and give us updates!

 

I just found a system that is a small version of what I am doing... Fishy Farm - Polyculture & Aquaponic Equipment For Family Food Production

 

Time for transplanting... This baby is nicknamed WTF... Cause I dunno WTF it is... I have 5 of these from seed... Dunno the sex yet...

 

UPDATE:

been busy working on the rest of the house (the grow room is the only room actually used for something other than construction... the house is a work in progress)

I got the auto feeder setup with flake food (the fish are still very small) added more worms to the system (this time to the fish tank and 8' table, we'll see how long they last) And the big change was puting plywood on the 8'table with 6" holes for the netty pots. I had wayyy to much algea building up, hopefully this will solve that problem. No light, no algea, right?

If I can even get up early enough or stay up late enough I will take some pictures of the plywood add on, it lifted the netty pots about 1 1/2" off the table. Hopefully that means more roots as well. I was worried I wouldn't have as good of a crop because of those small pots.

I am the kind of person that can't really leave anything alone for long. I am always trying to "improve" on something.

This setup right now is kind of like a combination of different hydro setups as well as vermiponics and aquaculture.

I'm brewin up a bach of BHO on the back porch right now... I can almost taste it.. MMMMM

time to medicate... I'll post more later

 

I was asked today about the timing of the cycles with the siphon system.

The best answer I can give is, I don't. It doesn't really matter what the timing is with your siphons, you just need to make sure you have constant flow and bubbles in your system. You goal isn't to time anything in a constant flow system, the big worry is standing water. My system seems to do very well cycling relatively fast, the 4' table is about every minute from high water to high water (full cycle) and the 8' table is a lot slower, about every 30-45 minutes from high water to high water.

The speed of the cycle has way too many variables to try and manipulate. It's effected by: the size of the standpipe, the size of the bell, the size of the pump, the volume of the bed. And that's just for my 4' table, since the 4' dumps into the 8' now I have to consider the timing of the 4' table as well as the other variables. I do know that if your pump is too powerful, you have to get a bigger standpipe/bell siphon.

All in all I think the cycles happen soo fast that it's basicly the same as DWC for the plants, I expect to have large root balls now that I have the plywood blacking the water out.