Setting Up Your Own Aquaponics System

Aquaponics is a symbiotic, integrated farming system that involves raising fish in tanks and using their nutrient rich water to grow fruit, vegetables and other plants. Once it is set up and cycled (creating sufficient amount of bacteria to produce enough nitrates for the plants and keep ammonia levels down for the fish), a small or home based system should only take a few minutes a day to care for the fish. If the fish are happy, the plants will require little to no care; and if your system is properly set up, the plants will take care of cleaning the water, so you won't spend your time cleaning the fish tank.

Aquaponics is one of the best and easiest ways to produce fresh, natural and healthy fruit and vegetables for the whole family without the pesticides of mass production, the high prices of store bought organics or the chemicals and non-renewable minerals required to feed a purely hydroponic system. You can choose to raise the fish as a hobby or harvest them for food, either way you are getting two direct benefits: fish and produce. Additional advantages include pride and self-confidence that comes from building something on your own and an opportunity to involve the whole family in a productive healthy activity.

How do Aquaponics Work?

A basic system is composed of: a fish tank, a unit to remove solids, a hydroponics subsystem to grow the plants and a sump to receive the water once it has gone through the system. From there the water is pumped bank into the fish tank and the cycle begins all over again. A bio-filter mechanism is necessary to convert ammonia to nitrates, most systems do not require a separate filter because they are the filter (ammonia attracts airborne nitrosomonas bacteria that convert it to nitrites, the nitrites then require some media or filtration system, depending on your system, to flow through where the nitrite to nitrate converting bacteria can grow and do their job).

Your main task will be to keep the fish environment healthy with proper PH balance, light, and temperature. On a home system this should only require a few minutes so of your time every day to check conditions, makes whatever adjustments might be necessary and feed the fish.

Space: How Much Space is Required for an Aquaponics System?

One of the great things about aquaponics is that it is a scalable system. A home-based system can be almost any size: a small indoor fish tank/aquarium set up to feed a few plants, a corner of the yard, the whole yard. You can build a decorative aquarium style system in your house; you can use your garage. You can also decide to go big for your extended family, or even bigger for commercial purposes. You can make your decision based on the outcome you desire such as production volume or space availability. You can decide to grow it incrementally: start small until you get the hang of it and then grow it to any size. Really it is all up to you.

If you only have room for a small footprint but you need more volume you can build a vertical system. Vertical columns above the fish tank house the plants. A vertical unit that takes up 1m X 2m (3 feet by 6 feet), for example, is twice as efficient as a hydroponic system of the same size. You can get 200 heads of lettuce in one year out of a single five foot column and it is much more water efficient than traditional farming with soil.

Location: Where Should You Put Your Aquaponics System?

Make sure the space you are contemplating is suitable. It can be and interior or exterior location such as your yard, your garage, or even your living room for smaller systems. The following is a list of basic considerations that should go into selecting a space:

Keep it simple: make sure the floor or ground is level. Decide how you are going to get electricity to power the pumps. Be safe, avoid long extension cords and complicated setups: make sure you have or can easily install an outlet nearby. Consider whether the design you choose will require a cover a cover of some kind ( it depends on the system you decide to go with). Although it si not all that loud, there will always be some noise coming from the system ( pump, running water) and since it should run day and night, you will probably want to avoid locating it too close to your bedroom or anywhere else where you need absolute quiet. Will you be able to maintain proper conditions for the fish and plants? (temperature and light for example)

The System: Which One Do You Choose?

You will need to decide what aquaponics model you want to adopt. There are many designs but three main models to choose from. (within those there are a number of design options):

MEDIA BASED (ie gravel, clay pebbles etc.): This is the most popular model for home based systems. There are different types of media based systems that you may want to consider: Continuous flow (uses expanded clay pebbles) this is a simple set up and it works, Basically the water trickles down after having been pumped up to the media bed, there are some disadvantages that make some people prefer other methods such as Simple Flood and Drain. Flood and Drain (uses gravel), can be set up as an Ebb and Flow system or Simple Flood and Drain, which may be the simplest and easiest system to set up and is effective, you just need to ensure that fish tank levels don't drop too much when the water is flooding the beds. Other methods include CHIFT PIST (Constant Height in Fish Tank, Pump In Sump Tank and Sump Tank Two Pump. DEEPFLOW / RAFT - more commonly found in commercial systems. The medium in this case is water (30 to 40 cm /12"-16" deep) in long channels. Plants in net pots are floated on rafts made from Styrofoam, plastics or other floating material. Their roots are always in water. NUTRIENT FILM TECHNIQUE [NFT]: Can be used both commercially and at home but is the least common in either case. These systems require mechanical filtration and higher maintenance than any other. It is similar to Deepflow but instead of being immersed in water the roots receive nourishment from a rivulet of water as it runs through the channel.

Finally, you will also need to decide what fish to raise (for food or as pets, you will also need to consider legalities for some species, climatic conditions etc.) and what plants to grow (many choices here). Space, method, system design, prep, fish, plants, prep... this probably all sounds really overwhelming and complicated but it is not; just take it one step at a time. You can build a system and have it running within a short time producing food for you and your family.

There are a number of ways to achieve this. You can hire someone to build it for you, which can be costly and defeats the purpose of doing something from scratch yourself. You will also be less self-sufficient when it comes to maintenance. You can opt for a pre-fab kit, an intermediate solution that is more costly than doing it yourself but probably less costly than a custom design and installation. Aside from cost, the problem you run into here is that your choices will be more limited; you will be stuck with whatever the kit gives you. Finally, the least expensive, most flexible and most self-sufficient option is to do it all yourself, which, believe it or not, is simple enough. As long as you have a good set of comprehensive, easy to follow instructions, you will soon be eating fresh, healthy natural produce from your very own aquaponics garden!

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