I have to say I’m extremely impressed. I know that growth on an aquaponics system is supposed to be explosive. However expectations have been managed for any system that is less than 4 months old. The whole ecosystem just hasn’t been developed yet. And yet here we are, amazing growth. After just barely over […]
The Fish Arrive
The fish finally arrive. I got the PH set right and after about 2 weeks the water fully cycled. So I ordered my fish from TilapiaSource.com They are out of Missouri and I’m in Oklahoma so it was an easy overnight ship. I acclimated the fish properly, in fact was probably more than cautious. The directions […]
Shade for the fish tank
Well we had several days in a row with 97-99 degree days. This was no good. Luckily we didn’t have any fish yet. However the water was getting up to 94 degrees. This is stretching it for Tilapia. I tried pulling the Bells so that the Grow Beds were in a constant flood. That didn’t […]
Plants taking off
A couple pictures to show you how well the plants are taking off in the brand new aquaponics. Granted this is a brand new system it’s not even a week old when I planted the plants. The plants took a good 5-6 days to sprout, and while I was waiting I ended up needing the […]
Putting it all together 4/4
The final step is finally here. It’s taken me a couple weeks of getting all the right supplies and putting it together in the evenings. Not too bad for my first system. So the last step of course is just filling with media, which I’m using river rock. And I also needed to get my […]
Putting it all together 3/4
Well now that I have everything set and leveled, tanks are painted and looking good. Now I’m ready to start plumbing it all up. You can see in one place I used UniSeals. From the fish tank to the sump I’m running hard PVC. And from the sump to the grow beds and back to […]
Putting it all together 2/4
We finally finished up all the painting today. Spray painting took forever. Half a day yesterday and half a day today. As I mentioned in my previous post I would not use aerosol cans again. Instead I would get a cheap HVLP gun from Harbor Freight. I did find that the grow beds had the […]
Putting it all together 1/4
Today we spent about 5 hours hunting down the last of the parts we needed. And at least another 5-6 hours painting. One mistake I made. I assumed that the flex seal rubber coating would be a great first coat. It is a dark black, covers well, it’s thick so adds to insulation, best of […]
Cutting up the IBC totes
So it took me a couple of days after work to get my totes cut up but they are finally ready. I’ll include all the pictures below. Here are a few things I learned along the way. I could use a razor blade to cut the totes. It’ll dull the blade quick, but it works […]
The beginning of my Aquaponics adventure
I’m officially starting my journey into aquaponics. I’ve been following a few different people. Such as Friendly Aquaponics, who does a raft based system and commercial farming. However, the investment is just to great for me to get that serious. I do plan on expanding, but for now I just need to get started and […]