First aquaponics system in Montezuma County??

I have always been a neigh-sayer of blogs. Why would other people want to read about my day to day activities? So I have never had a blog. I decided to start this blog not to share what I had for breakfast, or who is mad at who, or what color shirt I am wearing today. Instead this blog is going to be totally devoted to my adventures in a new found pastime called Aquaponics.

I was reading the NYTimes a couple of weeks ago and stumbled on this article... Read This!
I was fascinated, a completely sustainable agricultural system based on 2 interconnected ecosystems. Aquaponics is the combination of Aquaculture (the farming of fish) and Hydroponics (soil-less cultivation of plants).

In case you didn't read the article, it goes something like this:

A fish tank is stocked with X-number of fish. A water pump is put into the tank pumping the water, including fish waste, to a grow bed which is filled with a growing medium of gravel or expanded clay pellets. In this grow bed you have planted various plants and vegetables (ie lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peppers...etc). Also in the grow bed are certain naturally occurring bacteria which convert ammonia and nitrites from the fish waste into usable substances for the plants, ie. fertilizer. The combination of the growing medium, bacteria and plants functions as a natural bio-filter cleaning the water and is then gravity fed back into the fish tank.

To recap, fish waste acts as a fertilizer for your plants, and the plants return clean, livable water to the fish. The only thing added to the system is fish food.

This is a very energy efficient process as well. The only thing, in an ideal system that needs electricity is a low voltage submersible pump.

So over the past 2 weeks or so I have been assembling the necessary parts to construct my own Aquaponics system. I have a 31 Gal fish tank (Rubbermade storage box), a 32" x 14" x 12" grow bed (another plastic storage box), a shelving unit, a submersible pump, an aerator, various pipes, tubes and fitting, and 2 twin bulb florescent shop lights (to serve as grow lights as I have little to no natural light in my tiny abode).


Above is my current, first try at a system. I still need to get a growing medium and fish, but otherwise it (in theory) is fully functional. The clear container is the grow bed, and the blue box is the fish tank. I plan on starting with different greens and tomatoes and then expand from there. For fish I am going to get ~6 goldfish and then adjust the number accordingly based on how well the bio filtration works.

My whole system will be on timers which will let the pump run for about 15 mins every hour, and will keep the lights on for about 10-12 hrs a day. The exact timing for both the pump and lights will be modified as the growing process progresses.

Hopefully this will provide me with fresh vegetable year round drastically reducing my reliance on imported vegetables from who knows where. I hope that by the time I move into a larger house, I will have this system somewhat understood so I can construct a much larger Aquaponics system and produce lots of veggies and raise edible fish. But that is still at least a year away.

I will try to update this blog with the progress of the garden frequently. If for any reason people have questions or want to tap my limited, but ever expanding knowledge of aquaponics, please don't hesitate to ask!