Aquaponics - Poop

Common practice is to spread your solids fish waste evenly over the grow beds so as to avoid creating dead areas depleted of oxygen, and perhaps containing too much nutrient for the plants. People often add composting worms to their grow beds to aid in the break down of fish solids. The normal method of distribution, is to split your incoming water into several outlets. This is often done by making a loop of hose that surrounds your grow bed, and drilling holes so water enters from all around.

I'm trying something a bit different. [note from the future - I'm currently engaged in a debate as to this being a good idea or not, so copy this approach at your own risk (even slightly more than everything else of here should be copied at your own risk)]

A few weeks ago I tried adding the water directly to the siphon area. Rather than going through the grow bed media, it just feeds into the gap between the media screen and the siphon. What this means is that the clear water spreads throughout the media, but the solids get dumped back into the fish tank.

Normally, the point is to try to get the solids out of the fishtank, but this way the solids get broken up each time they get dumped back into the fish tank. they just seem to vanish after going through the system a few times. At any time, when you look into the water, there is about the same amount of solid fish waste in the water. It's normally queued up in a bit of a whirlpool that forms near the pump. At any one time there might be a teaspoon of solids and bits of who knows what in the little pile.

It's possible that this will all end in disaster, but it's also possible that this is a viable method of mechanically breaking down fish solids before they do into the grow bed.

Because I'm lazy, it's also worked out nicely that I didn't even have to make anything. All I had to do was extend the pump hose so it would reach the siphon.

There is some chance that the solids are building up on the far side of the media screen (in my case, the soft drink bottle that keeps the grow media away from the siphon) but the water rushes to the siphon quite quickly once it triggers, so I suspect it would draw any solids back through the screen and into the fish tank.

I'm keeping a close eye on it and will let you know if any further developments manifest.

By the way, that's strawberries at the top left, three week old coz lettuce (from seedlings) top right and bottom, and the little ones in the middle are baby spinach (also planted three weeks ago from tiny seedlings). Interestingly I planted the spinach on a hot day in the middle of the day and they all wilted to the point where I was sure none would live. Two days later they were still alive but were all wilted to the point of laying flat on the ground. But now every single one is thriving.

We should be harvesting individual salad leaves within a week.

Aquaponics is like intensive care for plants.

Aquaponics - Goat

As useful as Granger was in helping me to make home made goat dung volcanic growing media, it turns out goats have no place near plants and gardens.

I thought I had him safely blocked from my small aquaponics test system, but people often think things like that when it comes to goats, and are often proven wrong.

This is what my grow bed looked like before the attack (actually this picture is older but you get the idea).

And this is the same plants now.

I walked into the back yard and saw my goat chewing a mouthful of strawberry plant, with an expression of surprise that I seemed to be upset.

I replied by turning on the hose, running around shouting, and trying to squirt him.

He seemed to think it was all great fun and promptly did what goats do when you chase them around squirting them with a hose. Head for the hills.

That's him on my roof.

Laughing at me.

My grow bed looks like this now.

I managed to save the rosemary, two strawberry plants (one with two runners forming), and some celery.

Aquaponics - Plants

Most plants love the environment provided by an aquaponics garden. Fast growing green leafy ones love it even more than everything else because there is always as much water and nutrient as the plants need.



Spinach (baby spinach pictured here), lettuce, basil etc will all grow amazingly fast in an aquaponics system. From what I'm told, the only plants that are probably not worth planting in aquaponics are ...

- mint, because it goes crazy and will take over the planet given half a chance.
-root crops like potatoes,  because it seems potatoes think its funny to make little ones in your siphon standpipe and everywhere else you don't want one. They block all your pipes and cause a stack of problems.
-beans. There are conflicting reports about beans. It seems beans don't like immature systems but grow just fine in systems that are a couple of years old.

One very important thing to keep in mind is just how much produce you are going to get from each plant. Don't plant out a half a dozen of anything that bears multiple fruit (like zucchini) unless you are in a family of ten or are planing on setting up a roadside stall. I've heard reports of well over a hundred cucumbers from a single plant and insane numbers of tomatoes.

Remember to plant things like lettuce every week or so to ensure a constant supply. You can just sprinkle seeds around and they will pop up some time later when you disturb the grow media. As you harvest a lettuce another will take its share of the light and grow like mad!

You can grow things very closely together because there is always plenty of nutrient and water. The plants don't need to compete for stuff that plants like so they all get along just fine. So plant them as close together as you can, allowing for just enough space to grow to full size.