Nano-Aquaponics

The system in all its glory!

Purple basil sprouting after directly sowing into the bed

I figured it is about time the fish in my freshwater tank started pulling their own weight and, after visiting a friend's aquaponics set up, decided it would be worth a shot to make one myself. Aquaponics (a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics) uses waste from fish and other aquatic organisms to feed plants, forming a more closed nutrient loop that benefits both fish and plants. So far I've been rather happy with the results. So, how does one turn a 15 gallon fish tank with a few guppies into a food producing power house? Well, I have yet to actually harvest anything but here is how I made my system and a few pics from the 3 weeks it has been running.

The first step was visiting the local hydroponics shop and picking up:

• a small pump (you don't need anything too beefy as it only is pumping the water about a foot and it doesn't need to pump that quickly)
• an ebb and flow plumbing kit which contains a bulkhead with screen for the flood portion and then a drain portion with a riser and screen on top of a bulk head
• a length of 1/2" and 3/4" tubing
• 10L of hydroton (I already had mine but you'll need it or 3/4" pea gravel works as well)

I stopped at the local hardware store and picked up some Tristar strawberry starts and a 3 gallon Rubbermaid bin. If you don't have it handy, you'll also need a small clamp light with a 26W daylight CFL, 2 lamp timers (15min increments for at least one), some 2x2 lumber, and some wood screws.

After gathering the supplies, I cut some of the lumber into 6 2' lengths. Four of these lengths were screwed into a square that will be the light support. I drilled an appropriately sized hole for the 2 bulk heads in the tub and unscrewed, attached, and rescrewed them on.  I then attached the 1/2" hose to the inflow at one and and the pump at the other. I put the 3/4" hose on the outlet (to muffle the sound of outflowing water). I washed the hydroton (important step!) and then put it in the tub and set the tub on top of the light stand and other 2 pieces of lumber that I'd put across the top of the aquarium. After setting one of the timers to be on for 15 minutes and off for 45 minutes, I plugged it in and set the other timer to run on for 12 hours and off for 12 hrs. I'd intended to let the new system cycle for a few weeks so that bacteria could take over the new grow bed but became impatient and planted 3 strawberry starts in the bed, carefully making sure that the crowns were in the dry portion of the hydroton. The plants responded well (easily 2-3x the size of the other 7 starts I planted in a strawberry pot after 3 weeks) and so, as part of an experiment, I started some purple basil seeds in rock wool, on a heat mat in my seed starting chamber (description coming soon!), and directly in the hydroton bed. While the seeds in the seed starting chamber came up first, the ones in the aquaponics system have caught up and look like they're about to put out their first set of true leaves. I may change out the wood for an aluminum frame in the future and might add a few worms from the worm bin as the system matures. I know it isn't the prettiest system but it will look much prettier with delicious sweet strawberries included. In short, if you have a tropical fish tank already set up, this is a great way to recoup some of those costs, help keep your fish happy and healthy, and grow some food in a relatively small space. I'll be sure to make an update when I'm swimming in strawberries and basil! Does anyone else have a an apartment aquaponics system going?

Jaboticaba and Loquats are here!

I recently purchased 3 jaboticaba and 2 loquat seedlings on eBay from Merseeco Seeds down in Florida. I recieved them on Friday and potted them up in 1 gallon nursery pots, except for 1 loquat which went into my recycled materials self-watering container (post coming soon!). The seedlings look great and seem to be settling into their new home.  The jaboticaba is a fruit-bearing tree native to South America. The fruit is known to contain anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer agents (Link). It will take many years (7-15 from what I've read) before the jaboticaba begin to fruit. When they do, the dark purple grape like fruits will grow right on the trunk of the tree. They apparently love water and having their leaves misted so I have them mixed in amongst the coffee trees that get misted regularly.  As you can see, these plants are tiny little seedlings but larger, more mature ones look to be available from Hirt's Gardens online (Jaboticaba Fruit Tree Plant - Bonsai or Houseplant). Hopefully, mine will look like the one in the picture (in the link) in a year or two! If I get motivated, I may even turn one of the three into a bonsai specimen. For now, I just hope to keep them alive and growing.

The loquats I hadn't given as much thought toward but they apparently also grow well in containers and, thanks to combined shipping, were very inexpensive. These fruit trees, indigenous to Southern China, will also likely take a long time before they flower and fruit. One key to this hobby is a great deal of patience! The small, sweet, yellow fruits are known to have a slight sedative effect. On the right is a picture of the 2 loquats (foreground and background) resting on one of my container inventions, the aero-crate planter (post to come soon!).  A coffee tree is currently planted in the aero-crate. On the right is a small cherimoya seedling.  Soon, I'll make a post on how I obtained and sprouted these cherimoya seedlings.

Introduction

Hello and thanks for visiting my little piece of the web!

To start, my goals for this blog are 3 fold:

• Be a place to write up the fun DIY projects I concoct/attempt
• Be a log of my plants' growth
  
• Be a resource to others trying to grow tropicals in temperate climates

Hopefully this will make me document what I've done a bit better so that I can reproduce successes, minimize failures, and get good suggestions from those more experienced gardeners out there. Just to be clear and get this out of the way early, everything I grow is 100% legal!

A bit about me: I'm a graduate student studying energy conversion and storage in Wisconsin (US Hardiness Zone 5). I live in a rented apartment that has a nice South facing 2nd floor patio and a bit of room for my plants and animals. Because of these things, time, space, and money are always a concern when it comes to my plant addiction hobby. I try to find cheap, local, recycled ways to grow things whenever possible. Most of my seedlings start life in (washed) red Coleman cups recouped from the lawns of frat houses on Sunday mornings or around town after Badger games.

My collection of plants includes:

• 7 Miracle fruit plants (though, 1 may not make it)
• 4 Key lime plants (grown from seed)
  
• 11 coffee plants
• 3 cherimoya seedlings (with more likely to sprout)
• 4 mangroves (in a salt water aquarium)
• a number of guava seedlings
• ginger
• various outside plants I'm trying to over winter indoors (peppers, lemon grass, citronella, skull cap, basil, and a few houseplants)
• 3 jaboticaba seedlings and 2 loquat seedlings

These plants mostly fit on a large table and in a small, cheap, high humidity vivarium I designed from 3mm drop cloth plastic and a metal shelving unit. I have the plants to over winter under a 150W HPS grow light and everything else is under 6500K flourescents (some compact, some 4ft linear T8 bulbs). Now for some pictures!

Here are my coffee plants, thriving and growing like crazy! On the far left, you can see one of my cherimoya seedlings and on the far right, a loquat in my homemade, recycled self-watering container.

My mangroves, growing and helping to keep my snowflake moray eel tank clean!

Miracle fruit madness! These bad boys are nearly breaking out of their enclosure. Hopefully I'll have some fruit soon.

My hydroponic red savina habanero has officially hit the ceiling.

Meyer lemon seedlings in the vivarium. I've read that these don't typically grow true to seed due to the plant being grafted to different rootstock. The owner of the tree assured me that he'd planted this on its own roots but only time will tell how exactly these turn out! Also, in the green pot, is a cherimoya seedling. They don't seem to like the high humidity of the vivarium and so, test complete, this little guy will move out with the other seedlings on the table.

More pics to come later!

I'm hoping to expand my collection when I can. Some of the plants I'm hoping to get in the future include:

1. Theobroma cacao (chocolate!) -- feel free to let me know if you have a good source for fresh pods!
   
2. Barbados cherry
3. a few types of passion fruit vines
4. Acai palms
5. Neem plants
6. pineapple and strawberry guavas
7. dwarf pomegranate
   
8. Vanilla orchid
9. Cinnamomum zeylanicum (Cinnamon tree)
10. I'm always open to other suggestions as well! Go ahead and post a comment for a recomendation.

I hope you enjoy these posts and please do leave feedback if liked what you read or there is anything in particular you'd like me to post on!

One further disclaimer, as you probably see some advertisements, I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. My goal isn't to make much money but to earn enough so that I can try out and add reviews of books and other products to this site for the benefit of this blog's readers.