Tag Archive
See How the Grow Baskets are Going to Work
Just an experiment to see how the baskets are going to work. I ended up just filling the baskets with hydroton.
Grow Bed Drain
To stop the hydroton from going down the water return drain to the grow tank I crafted a strainer. To increase the amount of water flow back to the grow tank I drilled six holes in the ABS pipe that leads down the 90 degree elbow.
Grow Beds Filled with Hydroton
I used a Hydroponics medium for the grow beds called Hydroton. Hydroton is pH neutral clay pellets that are 4mm-8mm in size. Each tank has 5 – 20kg bags which works out to a lot of washing, took me two evenings to wash it all.
The First Fill of Water in to Grow Tank
The grow tank is full of water to start running the system to get it stable. Since I am only filtering for large particles and ammonia, the first water filter I used was a Rena XP4. Sweet filter and at 450 gal/hr this unit can really keep the tank clean. The grow tank has the [...]
Drains Installed, All Grow Beds and Grow Tank are Plumbed Together
The aquaponics set up is really starting to look like something. This series of photos show different views of the water supply plumping and return drains. Here you can see the grow tank with all the return drains. This photo shows a nice view of the water circulation pump. I have two shut [...]
Final Placement of Aquaponics System
Now that the water supply loops and drain bulkheads are installed I set the system up for its final placement. Once this system is filled with water it will not be easy to move.
Each Grow Bed Needs a Water Supply Loop
Once I had one water supply loop built I was able to replicate the design to the other two grow beds.
Bulkhead Installation for Drain Return Back to Grow Tank
The bulkhead installation required a 3″ hole in the grow tank for the 1 1/2″ ABS drain pipe. The funny thing here is that I didn’t have a wrench big enough to tighten the nuts of the bulkhead. So, I used my vise to torque the nuts down.
Water Circulation Pump
To circulate the nutrient rich water from the grow tank to the grow beds, I decided to go with a 1200 gal/hr MAG pump. The MAG pump is a very nice pump that is very quite. The MAG pump comes with a coarse foam block that acts as a filter so nothing big gets into [...]
3 Aquaponics Grow Bed Tables Completed
After building the first table I was able to use it as a blueprint to build the other two Aquaponics Grow Bed Tables. Here are two done. And now there is three. One note: I built just a table top for the 100 gallon fish tank to sit on. I added two more cross [...]
Aquaponics Guru
Hi, my name is Bruce Milton. Originally I created this site to just sell Aquaponic products, but it turned into so much more. During the research phase of this site and the articles that would go into it, I really got into the entire concept and thought, "Hey, I could build on of these systems at home".
What I am going to provide is the design, building and running phases of my Aquaponics project. I really enjoy green vegetables and fish. This system will provide my family with fresh fish and vegetables year round. This is the way food was meant to be grown.