Up and running!

Yesterday made the trip to Durango to purchase the final necessary components to the system, fish and a grow medium. I had called the Hydroponic store in Durango to inquire about what they sell for a growing medium. They only have expanded clay pellets, 50L for $35. Quite pricey considering I was going to need about 100L! I then called Home Depot to see what kind of gravel they had, and they sell 50lb bags of generally 1/4-1/2" gravel for $4.50 a piece. Much more of a reasonable price. I bought 250lbs worth, which I was pretty sure was going to be excessive, but I would rather have a bit more than not enough.

Fish connection was the next stop in Durango. I bought 8 gold fish, 1-2" in length (the guy threw a 9th in for free), and one Plecostomus (for algae cleaning). I also bought gravel for the fish tank, fish food and a plant (Egeria).

Once home, I put the fish (still in their bags) into the tank which has been sitting out for 24 hrs to de-chlorinate in order to acclimate them to the water temperature. I washed the aquarium gravel prior to putting it in the tank to get rid of dust and rock particles.

Next was the task of cleaning the gravel for the grow bed. After debating as to the best way to do this I settled on putting 200lbs of gravel into the grow bed burying a piece of vinyl tubing at the low end of the bed. I corked the drain pipe and saturated the gravel with ~4 gallons of water. The tube to was then used siphon out the dirty water. And my was it dirty. It looked the the San Juan river at flood stage! I repeated this process of saturation and siphoning until the water was pretty much clear. It took about 5 or 6 washes to achieve this. I am really glad I decided to wash it otherwise my fish would already be dead from the debris draining off of the gravel!

Below is a photo of my system up and running!


When I first put the fish in the tank, they were quite shell shocked. But after a while they began to explore around a bit, and eat some when I fed them. Today they are still a bit hesitant and like to hide around the pump, and behind the curtain of air bubbles from the aerator.


Before starting the pump I planted my vegetables in rows in the grow bed. I purchased Seed Savers Seeds from Let It Grow in Cortez. Seed Savers is a great company to buy seeds from as they preserve and sell thousands of heirloom seeds that have not been effected by industrial seed production and the corresponding mutations that occur with that process that is causing genetic erosion of crop species. I decided on planting 5 different vegetables: Stupice Tomatoes (a quick fruiting variety of tomatoes), Sweet Basil, Cilantro, Arugula, and a red and green lettuce mix.

Once planted I plugged the pump into the timer and turned on the power strip. I am a bit disappointed with the analog timer that I bought for the pump. It is set to run the pump for 15 mins every hour, yet it seems to not grasp the concept of a minute and runs for about 25 on and 35 off. Going to have to mess around with that a bit.

Once I get the timing and discharge of the water pump calibrated properly, I will be in good shape! Hopefully the bacteria in the gravel are starting to form, and that the seeds are happy and will germinate within the next week or so!

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!