aquaponics
- Thread starter Dr.Pecker
- Start date
Cannabidude
Well-Known Member
My fish dealer (for my aquariums) is big on this.....bathtubs probably too small for anything more than 2 small-med plants. he suggested a 30 gallon tub for just 1 or 2 vegetable plants. He's using talapia instead of regular pond fish. mostly because they're big producers and are readily available around here. hes using a 200 gallon tub in the store front with about 6 or 7 regular plants (decorative, very small ~6-12 inches per) and 2 vegetable plants. The cucumbers hes got going only got about 1/4 -1/2 inch and the peppers didn't come in at all just bloomed and formed the buds and then stalled. Cannabis should't need as much as all that but id recommend going as large as you possibly can for something like this. Oh yeah and he was running ~20-30 (i think) fish in that 200 gallon tub VERY crowded. I'll get some pics next time i head into the shop. Match your fish food to your veg/flower state ahead of time, poop has to breakdown, but this should help encourage the correct nutrient production, get something with a flexible diet so you can change food depending on cycle, but also remember to keep up enough variety to keep the fish healthy. Quarantine all fish before using them in a system you intend to eat/smoke etc. to be sure they have no diseases. Keep in mind the food you feed them will also be producing your "nutes" so make sure its something safe for human consumption. All in all i think this is a worthwhile project and im definitely subbed up. If you need more specifics just let me know, i can always ask him for the skinny.
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Dr.Pecker
Well-Known Member
That's exactly the kind of information I'm looking for! Every system that Ive seen had tons of fish crowded like you said. I believe the plans are to go bigger after the smaller model works if it works. its a small veg room so bathtub should handle it I hope. Do you think we should start up with talapia? You know what get the skinny that would be nice thanks. Ill be working on it at about 3 pm tomorrow I'll check riu and see if anyone posted.
Cannabidude
Well-Known Member
Cannabidude
Well-Known Member
I will see if hes on shift tomorrow, i work right by there and need to pickup some feeders anyhow.
Cannabidude
Well-Known Member
Mo!
Well-Known Member
So think about it. (And I'm hoping you just mistyped the number.)
300 gallon for just 1 or 2 vegetable plants?! Even 200 gallons for 10 mixed plants even sounds insane to me.
We have built quite a few 2 55 gallon barrel systems using bluegill and koi (due to cooler weather here). Take 1 55 gallon barrel and use it as the tank, then cut the other in half, install your plumbing and bell siphons, and you've got 2 25 gallon grow beds. We grow everything except root veggies in these things.
Lately we've been moving away from using the grow beds and moving back to float systems with the AP, and just pulling the solids out of the filter and using them in the soil garden for fertilizer. This is also allowing us to add some NFT systems in the mix with the solids filter now.
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Mo!
Well-Known Member
I looked at this a ways back but never got around to actually trying it out. I didn't want to set up a full system in the basement, but I did build a small system (10 gallon FT with 4 Comets and a ~6 gallon grow bed) to see how it "appeared" to work. I kept finding conflicting results out there, so like everything else new-"ish" in our world you just have to try it out and see if it works. Unfortunately, I never put a bean into it. I ended up putting actual herbs in it, and it's still sitting on my desk growing basil, dill, rosemary, savory, and some lettuce.
I'd probably suggest (assuming there's no one that has already done this in the past that can offer some keys to success) to do a small single plant system and see if it's enough to support the plant all the way to harvest before expanding the operation. IIRC, there were a lot that said you needed to add some things along the way (like potassium and phosphorus), but like I said, I never got to actually try out the experiment, so I'll be watching to see what progress you make!
I'd probably suggest (assuming there's no one that has already done this in the past that can offer some keys to success) to do a small single plant system and see if it's enough to support the plant all the way to harvest before expanding the operation. IIRC, there were a lot that said you needed to add some things along the way (like potassium and phosphorus), but like I said, I never got to actually try out the experiment, so I'll be watching to see what progress you make!
Cannabidude
Well-Known Member
That was supposed to be 30 gallons btw. I fixed it above. His does seem to be a bit off ratio as i look at some other system but not by much if you want decent sized plants...
"And, to simplify things even more, instead of square feet of grow bed, we usually use volume for the grow bed as well.
Usually you will see the ratio listed as Grow bed to fish tank like 2:1 would be twice as much grow bed as fish tank (yes, I know you wind up needing a sump tank or some additional way to deal with water level fluctuations if you have a 2:1 system)
Anyway, if you want to have anywhere near max stocking of your fish tank, you will need twice as much grow bed as fish tank and additional aeration. Example. 300 gallons of fish tank would have 600 gallons of flood and drain media bed filtering for it and would probably need a 300 gallon sump tank to handle the water level fluctuations.
Does this help?
I know this doesn't really answer your square footage question but the truth is, it is more about the bacteria to do the bio-filtration than it is about the plants taking up the nutrients since everything can handle a fairly wide range of nitrates for plants while if you are under filtered, the ammonia and nitrite can kill fish quickly. Aquaponics is really all about the bio-filter, A system can run sans fish or sans plants for a period of time but without good filtration, it can all start to stink pretty darn quick. Also, square footage of growing space is also highly variable depending on plants grown, system pH, light levels, etc. There is no way to give a decisive answer as to how much plant growing space will be perfect for a system since a change in any of those and hundreds of other variables will affect the operation. Lots of growing space is great but not at the expense of appropriately deep grow beds. 12 inches deep is a good minimum for most situations though I think 24 inch deep grow beds are great too."
So as you can see for a 200 gallon tank you would use ~ 400 gallons of media is just 53 cubic feet of space. thats about 5ftx5ftx2ft. Thats very little space for cannabis plants. IMO
"And, to simplify things even more, instead of square feet of grow bed, we usually use volume for the grow bed as well.
Usually you will see the ratio listed as Grow bed to fish tank like 2:1 would be twice as much grow bed as fish tank (yes, I know you wind up needing a sump tank or some additional way to deal with water level fluctuations if you have a 2:1 system)
Anyway, if you want to have anywhere near max stocking of your fish tank, you will need twice as much grow bed as fish tank and additional aeration. Example. 300 gallons of fish tank would have 600 gallons of flood and drain media bed filtering for it and would probably need a 300 gallon sump tank to handle the water level fluctuations.
Does this help?
I know this doesn't really answer your square footage question but the truth is, it is more about the bacteria to do the bio-filtration than it is about the plants taking up the nutrients since everything can handle a fairly wide range of nitrates for plants while if you are under filtered, the ammonia and nitrite can kill fish quickly. Aquaponics is really all about the bio-filter, A system can run sans fish or sans plants for a period of time but without good filtration, it can all start to stink pretty darn quick. Also, square footage of growing space is also highly variable depending on plants grown, system pH, light levels, etc. There is no way to give a decisive answer as to how much plant growing space will be perfect for a system since a change in any of those and hundreds of other variables will affect the operation. Lots of growing space is great but not at the expense of appropriately deep grow beds. 12 inches deep is a good minimum for most situations though I think 24 inch deep grow beds are great too."
So as you can see for a 200 gallon tank you would use ~ 400 gallons of media is just 53 cubic feet of space. thats about 5ftx5ftx2ft. Thats very little space for cannabis plants. IMO
Mo!
Well-Known Member
Check out silverarm32 on youtube. He's doing it pretty successfully. To get around the missing nutrients he's just feeding fish food (flakes and pellets) that contain about 1% phosphorus, and brine shrimp every couple of weeks to add the Iron, and then uses worms in the bed to make worm castings to fill in the other missing elements.
