GreenAquaponics.org » Aquaponics

On our way to fish!

GreenJesster — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 04:45:47 +0000

Finally heater is installed and I have approval from the lab committee for fish, one more hurdle and we will be all set to put fish in. Heater is turned on, im curious what the temp will be in the morning. System cycling will start tomorrow. I will start by adjusting ph and adding ammonia. It will be interesting to see how fast the ammonia is converted. I have system inoculant But I will wait to add until next week. I don’t think it is necessary to inoculant but I am looking to see how much difference it makes before and after. I’ll keep you posted!

Water’s moving

GreenJesster — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:12:47 +0000

Thank you to everyone that came out and helped during the past few months and at last weeks work party. Couldn’t have done it without you!

Finally water is in, pumps and aerators are on. Everything is working great!

These rafts are made out of open celled foam, I will be replacing these with Blue Dow foam board. It will hold up better and not fall apart.

It was so exciting to finally see the water in the system, water flowing, the system was functioning the way I planned!

Workparty

GreenJesster — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 05:23:35 +0000

You guys were amazing!We finished attaching the greenhouse plastic! It is trimmed up and looking sharp.

I started installing the siphon piping connecting the two aquaculture tanks.

We had an amazing workparty at the Aquaponics Greenhouse today! A big thank you to everyone that came out a pitched in. We got so much done today! I couldn’t have done it with out you; big thanks to Evan, Heather, Mitch and Scott

Scott helped move a bunch of blocks to the end of the green house to make a stand for the Solids Separator.

Mitch and Evan set up the blocks and got them level. Awesome job!

Evan helped getting the pump mounted at the end of the raft tank.

Raising Aquaculture Tanks

GreenJesster — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:10:52 +0000

The concrete blocks were delivered last Thursday and were installed on Monday. Johnny and Greg did a great job and they look fantastic!

By lifting up the tanks I aim to prevent overflow and to take advantage of gravity rather than just relying on siphon feeds for connecting all of the tanks. By designing properly water will flow from the top of the system to the bottom with only one pump.

Although this is not my favorite solution, while working within the boundaries the college,(which means creating structures that can be removed) as well as staying within budget this solution is the best for this project. It would be possible in another situation to dig aquaculture tanks into the ground and having them as the lowest point in the system pumping up to the plants.

Greenhouse Plastic Take 2!

GreenJesster — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 18:01:09 +0000

Pulling the greenhouse plastic tight over the frame. On this greenhouse we were attaching the plastic with lathing, another option is channel lock using wiggle wire.

It is best to pull the plastic as tight as possible when installing. The warmer the day the better, the plastic will expand and be the most flexible.

Finally the greenhouse plastic is up and installed! We had a great group of volunteers show up and help out! I wouldn’t have been able to get the plastic up without them. Thanks to Heather, Jesse, Claire, John, and Nick!

Most importantly is to not try to do this on a windy day! It seems every time we even talked about skinning the greenhouse the gods would laugh and kick up a little windstorm to make this task a little more fun…ha!

Water!

GreenJesster — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 01:54:30 +0000

Installing the liner for the aquaponics raft tank! The pond liner is super heavy and not easy to work with, learning to fold the corners was pretty difficult. When installing your liner be patient and take your time!

The liner should be pulled tight over the frame, but loose enough to account for future weight of the water.

I used a food safe pond liner, but next time I will use a white vinyl liner, it is quickly becoming the industry standard. Lighter weight and food safe the liner is the better choice, although more expensive.

Wrapping the liner around the frame I attached it with roofing nails with the plastic ring to help disperse the tension on the nails, this will help keep the liner from ripping.

“Must make it SssmoOOOoooth”

Aquaponics Project Progress

GreenJesster — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 06:18:49 +0000

TESC Aquaponics Project

Mouse over pictures to see text captions.

Progress!

GreenJesster — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:07:41 +0000

Plastic is up on 3/4 of the greenhouse, it is really starting to come together!

Thanks to the help new DEAP interns we got the plastic on the side walls.

Installing welded wire to strengthen the frame, there is going to be a lot of water in this tank!

This will be the floating raft tank where the plants are grown. Next step foam lining all of the sides and then the bottom. After that the install of the pond liner.

Dirt and Plastic

GreenJesster — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:02:42 +0000

Thursdays work party was really productive. Finished the trench and Brandon came down to lend a hand and graded the bed area so tank construction can be completed.

I finished digging the trench and put the sidewall plastic on one side!

Thanks to Brandon and Nick for you help!

Snowpocalypse

GreenJesster — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:08:47 +0000

The snow started out beautiful dust of fluffy snow, I had just got the first part of the plastic on before the storm. Shown in the post below I was super excited to get things rolling….Unfortunately the snow didn’t stop. We received 20″ of snow in Olympia, thanks to the farm caretaker the frame didn’t collapse under the weight of the snow. I thought we were out of the woods when the snow stopped.

(This is me pre-tree branch falling on my greenhouse. I wasn’t smiling after…)

Following the snow we had a little rain which the snow in the trees just soaked up, then huge gusts of wind blew for two days. A few branches came down and caused damage to the plastic. We are lucky the huge one missed the greenhouse by a few feet.

Over all less damage than it could have been. The greenhouse will need re-skinned but at least the structure survived!

Greenhouse Plastic

GreenJesster — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 03:19:02 +0000

Working hard in the new year! We worked this Thursday at getting the plastic re-installed over the greenhouse frame. Although winter is not the best time to install plastic it can be re-tightened in the spring. I am really excited about getting the rest of this install done over the next quarter.

Chicago Aeroponics Garden!

GreenJesster — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:52:24 +0000

On my way back from holiday travels I saw signs for the O’hare Int Airports new Aeroponics garden, the O’Hare International Airport Eco-Farm. Very cool site indeed, supplies produce for restaurants in the airport. Check out the project website

Hydroponic Raft Framing Complete!

GreenJesster — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 06:07:00 +0000

All of the wood framing for the raft tank has been completed. Materials are ready for the next step once we get the plastic on the greenhouse. The electrician is ready to wire the greenhouse.

Thanks to Everyone who has helped so far… Cy, Nick, Erick, and Shay! Thank you so much!

Building Hydroponics Raft Frame

GreenJesster — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:17:02 +0000

Started the construction of the Raft Tank!

Breaking Ground!!!

GreenJesster — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 20:24:21 +0000

Updated Design Illustrations

Jessica — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:29:16 +0000

Updated project design illustration

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Previous Aquaponics System

GreenJesster — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:07:20 +0000

Here are a few photos of my first project in building aquaponics systems. This system was the final project of a student collaboration at Maharishi University of Management in 2009.

This system was a medium based grow system utilizing gravel. I have learned a lot since then and would not use the same design although it functioned great!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

How to make a Vertical Grow Tower

Jessica — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:07:36 +0000

Check out this video! Very cool! From Bigelow Brook Farm

Success!

GreenJesster — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:42:58 +0000

Just wanted to let everyone know my exciting news! I have been working to get a aquaponics system in on campus at The Evergreen State College. My project has been approved! We will be installing a system at the Organic Farm and this system will be utilized in the Spring 2012 Practice in Sustainable Agriculture Program as the first project in the new Urban Agriculture Component. I also applied for funding and was awarded $5,500 with an additional $5,000 for running electricity and installing metering equipment so we can monitor exactly how much power we are consuming!

Hooray!

Calcium? Phosphorous? Iron?

Jessica — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:26:31 +0000

I had a lot of questions going in to this phase of research about how to supply the needed nutrients to the system without having to buy chemical substances. I haven’t found a lot of resources online or otherwise about this. Max Meyers had quite a few ideas…
Snails, crustaceans, prawn shells can be dried and fed to fish to increase calcium, or ground into a fine powder and added directly to the system. Shells can be added to the filter to allow calcium to leach into the system as needed. Chicken manure as well as other bird droppings can be added directly or composted and added to supply potassium and phosphorous. Iron can be supplemented by creating comfrey tea. Allowing the leaves to soak in water for a week, strain/drain and then add the water to the system. As well as seaweed, dehydrate the plant matter and then crush and soak in water for a week, then straining the solids from liquid and adding the water directly to the culture water. Other dynamic accumulators can be used, the same plants that leave nutrient residues in the soil for other plants to consume can be used in aquaponics as an additive. Blood can also be used to add iron to a system. Rusty nails do not produce the right kind of iron and should be avoided.