Setting up the Aquaponics Unit

Here is the completed setup with the grow bed on top and plastic bin on the bottom for the temporary fish tank. I filled a majority of the grow bed up with river rocks and the rest with lava rocks. 

    I then let the system run for a week or so before I added the fish and some plants. The plastic bin I used for the grow bed had been in an outdoor garage for 5-6 years and it developed a slow leak on a corner from the expanding and contracting of the water. I then decided that a circular bin would be better for the stresses. The $6 Walmart rope bin hasn't had a problem in the seven or so months that it has been used and I expect that it will last several years since I haven't seen any wear. 

    I really wanted to do this project because I was intrigued by the idea and I wanted an excuse to build an automated system. My hope was to get some experience with aquaponics because I wanted to really expand the hobby once I'm out of school and have a place of my own someday. I just kept thinking of all sorts of ideas that I could implement on a small system so I decided to do this after my summer classes. My apartment definitely did not have enough room for this so I set it up at my parent's house. I had barely thought much about what I wanted to grow in terms of plants so I just asked my mother if she had any ideas and she kept  several plants in pots for me instead of planting them in a garden. So once I got everything set up I planted some strawberries and some bell, jalapeno, and sweet peppers.

    My boss at work also had some tomatoes that had been kept for too long in a greenhouse that he gave to me. I ended up adding them in and adding some more grow beds as well, one that overhung the porch to catch rainwater so I never needed to add any water into the system.        

 I didn't get to check on the system for a week, but I came back and everything had just sprouted up real fast. The microbe colony in the rocks probably flourished with the added fish and the temperatures did drop slightly that week. After that I tried to get pictures as often as possible. I planted the plants in the beginning of August 2013 and these pictures were taken from August until the end of September. 

Here is a video of me the feeding the 50 gold fish. I started off with 30 and then decided that I needed more ammonia in the system. The ammonia gets broken down into nitrites and nitrates by the microorganisms in the rocks which then the plants use as nutrients. You can briefly see the plants and at the end I record while the siphon kicks in and drains the grow bed. It takes about 6-7 minutes to fill and about 30 seconds to drain.