Water, water, everywhere...
Yeah, so, aquaponics is kinda cool... *grin* It's Hydroponics (using water as the grow medium for plants) combined with Aquaculture (breeding aquatic produce). It's how all the cool cats define using fish to make plants that are not only healthier but also grow faster. There's a simple cycle of life involved, wherein the fish poop (surprising, I know!), which creates ammonia in the water. The ammonia is turned into nitrites, then nitrates. Nitrates are fantastic for plants, so if the fish poop water is added into the plants then the plants grow much better and faster. It comes down to how much you feed the fish, not surprisingly, to determine how big the plants get. A basic set up can be as simple as putting some mint cuttings in a piece of styrofoam (polystyrene?) and laying that on top of your fish tank. The plants drink up the water, removing the excess nitrates as they do so. If you can keep your fish from eating the plant roots, you've got healthy fish, healthy tank, and healthy plants. Nice!
So I'm looking at this because of the simple interaction of it all. We already have fish in our 100 gallon rain tank. The plants we feed out of that tank (a gravity feed through the hose or right into a bucket) are very healthy, more than the others we feed with just rain water.They grow very well, and seem to keep off diseases and insects better than others. I can see how the fish will benefit our plants! So moving that up a notch, I am looking to engineer a flood-and-drain system using water from a rain barrel, probably a standard 55-gallon plastic drum.
The way I see it, I would need to put a pump into the rain tank, and pump the water up into a gravel-like medium where the plants are living. This wets the roots with nutrient-rich water, giving them the food they need. The gravel lets the water pass through it, and also give the roots the purchase they need. Once the roots are wet well and the plants fed, the water is drained back into the fish tank. The plants have cleaned the nitrates (ammonia) out of the water, making it cleaner and healthier for the fish. This keeps you from having to drain and clean the tank, and keeps the fish in a more balanced atmosphere. Most fish tanks should have about 20% of their volume exchanged on a regular basis, water that many times is simply put into the drain because of the cleaning chemicals most people put into the tanks. This alleviates all of that.
Since the water from the barrel has to leave the barrel (and the fish) in order to feed the plants, I would only reliably have about 20-25 gallons of water to work with. I could go as high as 45 (leaving 10 in a full tank), but that limits the number of fish I could keep in the tank. I feel like hitting a 50-50 balance would work out well, so that I would be pumping half of the water from the tank to feed the plants and leaving the other half for the fish to live in for the duration. A duration I do not know yet, honestly, but am assuming would be about 12 hours. But that sets one limit on things for the First Major Try: 50 gallons of water to work with. (Note: it is possible to have a recirculating pump set up that pushes water up to one end of the plant beds and lets it flow to the other that might give me more water, and more plants, to work with. But this is more complicated, would cost more initial investment, and would fail if the power went out. So, not for me at this point.)
Next would be the number of plants I could water effectively with 25 gallons of water. I've been reading a lot about the formula for determining that, but I don't have any set conclusions. My main issue right now is deciding which plants to add into the system, thus determining the number of plants based on their water needs. Tomatoes, for instance, will pull a lot more water than mint. But I'm thinking that I start with tomatoes anyway, because so many people love them.
And secondary to that, I want to have tomatoes earlier than most people. I want them in the end of May, actually, starting in late January or first week of February. That means several things. First, I cover the area I want the tomatoes to grow in with a hoop house or greenhouse (a hoop house is a high plastic covering for the rows, letting you walk around in the rows). Or I start them in a greenhouse and then move then to the hoop house. Or even a simple heat box for the seedlings. But something to give the seeds and seedlings the heat they need to grow, then to protect them from the frost. Again, hoop house most likely.
Right now it's simply an idea. A big, whirling mass of ideas for the farm. But I like it, and I think I can do it. Many people have before me!
So I'm looking at this because of the simple interaction of it all. We already have fish in our 100 gallon rain tank. The plants we feed out of that tank (a gravity feed through the hose or right into a bucket) are very healthy, more than the others we feed with just rain water.They grow very well, and seem to keep off diseases and insects better than others. I can see how the fish will benefit our plants! So moving that up a notch, I am looking to engineer a flood-and-drain system using water from a rain barrel, probably a standard 55-gallon plastic drum.
The way I see it, I would need to put a pump into the rain tank, and pump the water up into a gravel-like medium where the plants are living. This wets the roots with nutrient-rich water, giving them the food they need. The gravel lets the water pass through it, and also give the roots the purchase they need. Once the roots are wet well and the plants fed, the water is drained back into the fish tank. The plants have cleaned the nitrates (ammonia) out of the water, making it cleaner and healthier for the fish. This keeps you from having to drain and clean the tank, and keeps the fish in a more balanced atmosphere. Most fish tanks should have about 20% of their volume exchanged on a regular basis, water that many times is simply put into the drain because of the cleaning chemicals most people put into the tanks. This alleviates all of that.
Since the water from the barrel has to leave the barrel (and the fish) in order to feed the plants, I would only reliably have about 20-25 gallons of water to work with. I could go as high as 45 (leaving 10 in a full tank), but that limits the number of fish I could keep in the tank. I feel like hitting a 50-50 balance would work out well, so that I would be pumping half of the water from the tank to feed the plants and leaving the other half for the fish to live in for the duration. A duration I do not know yet, honestly, but am assuming would be about 12 hours. But that sets one limit on things for the First Major Try: 50 gallons of water to work with. (Note: it is possible to have a recirculating pump set up that pushes water up to one end of the plant beds and lets it flow to the other that might give me more water, and more plants, to work with. But this is more complicated, would cost more initial investment, and would fail if the power went out. So, not for me at this point.)
Next would be the number of plants I could water effectively with 25 gallons of water. I've been reading a lot about the formula for determining that, but I don't have any set conclusions. My main issue right now is deciding which plants to add into the system, thus determining the number of plants based on their water needs. Tomatoes, for instance, will pull a lot more water than mint. But I'm thinking that I start with tomatoes anyway, because so many people love them.
And secondary to that, I want to have tomatoes earlier than most people. I want them in the end of May, actually, starting in late January or first week of February. That means several things. First, I cover the area I want the tomatoes to grow in with a hoop house or greenhouse (a hoop house is a high plastic covering for the rows, letting you walk around in the rows). Or I start them in a greenhouse and then move then to the hoop house. Or even a simple heat box for the seedlings. But something to give the seeds and seedlings the heat they need to grow, then to protect them from the frost. Again, hoop house most likely.
Right now it's simply an idea. A big, whirling mass of ideas for the farm. But I like it, and I think I can do it. Many people have before me!