# aquaponic fish recommendation?



## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

I have my aquaponics setup almost done and now need some fish to put in it. Since I'm not growing the fish to eat them like some aquaponics hobbyists do and I'll have aquatic plants in the tank as well as the vegetables in the garden portion of the setup, I'd prefer to get fish with the following qualities:

*Freshwater
*Colorful
*Community (non-aggressive)
*Will leave my aquatic plants and shrimp alone
*Large (I have a 75 gal)
*somewhat high waste producing since I'll need lots of nitrates in the water for the plants in the garden part of the setup as well as the ones in the tank. 

I'm not a big fan of goldfish and I hear they rip up plants anyway. anyone got suggestions?


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

...googling aquaponic....

OK, so it's just a hydroponics container that is see thru? 

You're looking for fish that aren't really possible... big fish are usually aggressive or plant eaters. Do you have an inkling of what species you want to try? Goldfish may leave the plants alone if you feed them well and yes, they will produce a lot of waste. Personally, I'd do an oscar. They knock plants around but don't eat them. Or try other large central/south american cichlids. I'd suggest large barbs (tear drops are awesome) but they'll pick at the roots. 

I guess I'm not much help. Can you post a pic of your set up? I'm curious...


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

yeah, I'll get a pic (or maybe a Tank Journal Thread) up as soon as it's picture-worthy. 

To Clarify, Aquaponics is similar to hydroponics, but takes it a step further. For most in the aquaponics hobby, they'll keep food fish (Perch, Tilapi, etc) in a fish tank with no decorations or substrate. Then they pump the water from the fish tank into a grow bed (usually gravel or gravel with some perlite in it) where garden vegetables and flowers take up all the nutrients in the water. There's no dirt in the grow bed to muddy things up. The water is then pumped or gravity-fed back into the tank for the fish. When the fish and plants are edible, the hobbyist eats them, then replaces them with more to start growing again. I'm not much on seafood so will have an aquascape in the tank instead, but I'm going to try to grow onions, Garlic, Peppers, Peas, and Carrots. and maybe eventually some Tomatoes. I'm told that veggies grown this way are much bigger and tastier than those grown in conventional dirt-gardens. 

Advantages to this kind of setup is that you never have to do a water change, you just top off what evaporates. You also get fresh veggies all year long. and because the demand for nutrients is so heavy, I'm guessing you don't have to worry too much about algae  

Because I want the tank plants and the grow bed plants to be lush, I'm going to overstock the tank by quite a bit to get enough nitrates to go around. 

Another option I'm considering is 2-3 large schools of small fish. (Maybe a school of zebra danios, one of guppies, and another of neon tetras for instance). I've never had a fish larger than a 10 in pleco before, though, so I'm torn between doing schools of small fish or having 8-10 large fish in the tank instead. 

As far as big fish, Oscars do sound fun. I've read they're the puppy-dogs of the fish world. I've also wondered about keeping Festivum or blue rams, but being that those are still cichlids, there's the aggression issue to think about.


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## benderisawesome (Sep 10, 2008)

I know a guy who built a system this summer using 2, 50 gallon plastic barrels and he used tilapia in his setup. The tilapia did pretty well but they're not exactly colorful. I'm not really sure what would work well AND leave your shrimp alone. What about plecos I know mine produces a lot of waste lol. I'm not sure though if they would leave your shrimp alone.

P.S. Cant wait to see your system I've been toying with the idea of making an aquaponic system.

Here's the system my friend built. It's pretty ingenious. Check out the other stuff on his website it's pretty awesome.
http://www.fastonline.org/content/view/15/29/


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

Sounds cool. Post in this thread if you start a journal, that way I can find it.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

Thanks, yeah I;m still working out how to do this inside with a planted tank since winters in Utah are not so conducive to growing plants outdoors. 

Benderisawesome - Your friend's setup is pretty cool. Wish I lived in a climate warm enough to try it. Or had a greenhouse. Either one.


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## ddavila06 (Jan 31, 2009)

what about a school of medium size rainbows like turcuoise or boesmani, youknow 10-12 fish should do well and maybe a school of corie cats about the same quatities. they are colorful, active and shouln't bother the shrimp. i have some cherry shrimp in my 125 with angels, rainbows cories and some other fairly large fish with no issues because i have plenty of plants. 

i do something similar to what you do but way low tech, just pump the water into the garden and the plants are doing really well feeding off the fish crap


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

Yeah! Rainbows! :3


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

As a result of my major MTS and the desire for a garden that Erin and I both have, we decided to set up an aquaponic system in our house because our Condo Association won't allow us to plant fruit/vegetable plants outside. It's been pretty expensive and confusing figuring it all out, but I think we're well-enough on our way now that I can pass on some knowledge to other people who may be interested and save them quite a few bucks in the process.

First thing to do, of course, is build a stand for the fish tank:










Yes, that's our dinner table and a borrowed chop-saw from my dad. You find, living in a condo, that rooms must have multiple uses. Erin's so good to let me do the cutting and everything on the table so that I can use the window behind it as a saw horse.










My daughter left a message in the sawdust.




























This is my favorite way to build a stand. It's simple and extra strong because each corner is reinforced . It also balances well when you're screwing it in. As you can see in that last picture, I didn't even need my wood clamps!

One of the major things I wanted to try with this setup is a Reverse Flow Under-Gravel Filter. I first heard of this from Hoppy over at PlantedTank.Net. The idea is that instead of pulling the water down through the sand, to the canister filter, then returning it at the top of the tank like you would with an undergravel filter, you pull the water from the water column to the canister filter, then feed it back into the tank from below the sand so that there are more nutrients for the plants (particularly the root-feeding plants) to thrive on. I loved this idea and thought I'd try it. The first shot below is the empty tank with a layer of Sphagnum Peat Moss on the tank floor, then a do-it-yourself Filter made of 1/2 inch PVC that would connect to the canister filter hose with a Funny Pipe barb in the corner:










Each of those pipes has holes drilled in them and the holes are pointing down at the bottom of the tank so that the water running through them doesn't just shoot holes in the substrate I'd put on top of them.










The next thing I did was add Perlite. The Perlite and Moss are to add nutrients for the plants since I'd planned on using Pool Filter sand to plant the plants in. Pool filter sand is recommended as one of the cheaper Aquarium Substrates because it doesn't break down and crush the roots of plants very easily. It also allows the water to flow through it fairly easily so that you don't get any "stagnant" spots that develop harmful anaerobic bateria. That bacteria eventually forms a bubble, floats to the surface, then pops and kills your fish and plants.

What I should have done at this point:
1: Use some of the more expensive Substrate. (Eco Complete by CaribSea is what I eventually ended up going back to)

If the substrate is disturbed in ANY way (like planting the plants or adding water too quickly), the moss turns the water to mud and the perlite floats to the top of your tank and blocks the light from getting in. It also looks ugly and messy. I've skimmed the water with a fish tank net several times, changed the water, and completely changed the substrate in the tank now and there's STILL perlite in there.

In addition to those issues, Pool filter sand acts like sandpaper and has contributed to the erosion of a few layers of skin on my fingertips every time I need to re-plant a plant or move something in the substrate in the tank.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

Had to break this up a bit so I didn't seem too long-winded. 










This was one of the ideas of my own that I liked the most. I'd never heard of a PVC drain when starting this project, so ended up making my own. That's a 1/2 inch PVC 90 degree elbow with a sink filter caulked into it. It's great for keeping fry (fish Babies) out of the filter.

Sadly, it also seems to make the filter suck in air somehow, though I'm not sure how or why. With Canister filters, that can lead to cavitation, which can hurt the impeller (the part of the filter that spins around in the motor to actually pump the water). With my filter, An XP3, I know I can replace the impeller when needed and I've read on several Aquaponics websites that the plants need a lof of oxygen, so I'm wondering whether I shouldn't just allow it to stay on the canister intake or not. I need to do some more research on cavitation, I guess.










This is the Grow Bed. (or one version of it that we've tried.) In Aquaponics, fish tank water is pumped to a grow bed that is filled with some sort of media. The aquaponics kits you can buy for several hundered dollers use baked compressed clay because of its ability to hold moisture and nutrients for the plants to use. I was trying to save money and used the moss and perlite combo mentioned before with some rocks from outside our house, some epoxy coated aquarium gravel, and some pool filter sand. This didn't allow for enough flow to the tank return pipe and the pool filter sand continued to grind skin off my wet hands when I'd try to work with it.

In the setup in the picture, there is one input and one output. I nearly flooded our kitchen several times (and di create several large puddles) trying to get the flow right on this setup. I never did get it right. the Grow bed is proving to be one of the trickiest things to figure out (and I still don't have it figured out yet!)



















In these pictures, you can see the outflow plan. I was trying to fill the tank without disturbing the substrate. The muddy water in the second picture shows you how unsuccessful I was.

the grow bed connections were done with Do-it-yourself bulk Heads made by putting rubber o-rings on both sides of the holes I'd drilled in the plastic, then squishing that against the plastic with a female flush-bushing on the inside of the grow bed and a male bushing piece on the outside. That would then connect to a ball valve to try to control flow.

What I should have done:

1. Use bigger PVC for the outflow/drains. 1/2 inch just doesn't seem to drain as well as it should. that small is fine for the inflow, but the outflow needs more help.

2. Keep the holes even. I drilled the holes in an impatient hurry so the hole saw splintered the plastic and made a jagged edge. Just like with drilling a fish tank, if you have any pressure at all besides the weight of the drill (assuming it's a light drill), the hole becomes jagged and harder to create a water-tight seal against.

Also, on the first grow bed version, I put the inflow hole as low as I could on the growbed and the outflow hole in about the vertical middle. I changed this on the next vesion because if your pump stops for any reason at all, the inflow hole becomes an outflow hole and your whole grow bed dries out, potentially killing your seeds. By having both holes at least mid-way up the grow bed, if the power goes out, there's a little water left in there for your seeds. That's for if you want a constant submerged aquaponic sytem. (learn about the different aquaponics systems here). If you'd prefer Ebb and flow, maybe the holes having different heights is what you want.

3. Use More holes.
I eventually did end up putting more outflow holes in. This helped it drain faster, but still with 1/2 inch PVC, I needed a lot of holes. I have 4 in that particular grow bed now and it's still not enough. Plus, with more holes, there's more places that can (and do) leak.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

I was anxious to get the tank cycling so I filled it the rest of the way and got some plants and feeder guppies in there.

I moved a lot of the plants I had in one of my ten-gallon tank over. They're suffering now because since I couldn't see to plant them due to the mud issue, they spent a lot of time just floating instead of getting planted. In addition, every time I need to move the tank or adjust something, I end up unplugging everything - the heater and the filter - so they've essentially starved and frozen. I've got things pretty-much settled in there now so we'll have to see what survives and starts to grow.


















this is what the stand looks like now. It's seen a lot of changes.

1. We had to increase the height of the stand below the tank to accomodate a Canister Filter.

Until Last week or the week before, we had just been using a basic water pump, which doesn't allow for the growth of nearly as much beneficial bacteria. Also, the pump we were using was noisy and ugly and generally not what we wanted. I ordered a pump off of E-bay thinking it was a model that I'd heard a lot about but that the seller didn't know it's name so hadn't listed it. When we got it, it was a knock-off from china that had instructions poorly translated from Chinese. It also (at different times) leaked, refused to pump, and flooded our carpet. I tried and tried to modify it to work but finally gave up and bought a Rena XP3, which is working beautifully as I knew it would. Lesson learned: in Filters, you get what you pay for. It's worth coughing up the extra money for a decent filter.

2: the grow bed that I had on the Window was now shaded and blocked by the taller stand so the lights above it couldn't help it grow. That's why we came up with the idea of moving the tank to a wall, then suspending the grow bed above the tank. The other reason we did this is that another version of Grow Bed that we'd tried was to get some long planter boxes and put them on a frame directly in the top of the fish tank so that the water would only come part-way up the planter box and the plants could have the water's nutrients and the air at the same time. This sort of worked, but in combination with the Do-it-Yourself lights, it completely blocked the top of the tank so that we couldn't re-plant anything or feed the fish. for this reason also, we moved the grow bed above the tank.

3. In the new tank stand, I have mounted power strips near the roof, so that the wires can stay somewhat organized without much chance of getting wet (unless the water is aimed directly at them, which is unlikely).

4: You can't see it in the picture, but there is an in-line heater behind the tank to add a bit of redundancy. If the in-tank heater fails (or vice-versa), there's another one to keep everything alive and running smoothly.

Future Plans:

I still need to set up plumbing from the grow bed to the tank. I will use 1" PVC for most of the drain and will build a Bell Siphon around the drains or maybe just a constant flow drain if 2-3 1 inch drains will be enough to prevent things from flooding. Either way the pipe will guide the water downward either at the front or back of the grow bed and back into the fish tank. I'm partial to the drains being at the back so that I can hide them in the tank with plants, but then I'll need more tubing going from the filter to the spraybar in the grow bed and I'm not sure what that would do to the canister filter's siphon process.


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

Oh, there's a light on the fish tank? You're going to grow plants in the aquarium, or is that just temporary?
I'd just be concerned that the aquarium plants will compete with the veggies you're trying to grow for yourself. If you get antsy and fertilize, I can envision an algae issue. Personally, I'd just grow moss to keep it simple. Just thinking...

So, the plumbing is similar to a sump, except it is above the tank? Cool... so where does the canister filter fit into this? I kinda figured it would just be a biological filter to start and a mechanical filter in the end.

Also, why is there mud? I thought hydroponics worked without soil.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

> Oh, there's a light on the fish tank? You're going to grow plants in the aquarium, or is that just temporary?I'd just be concerned that the aquarium plants will compete with the veggies you're trying to grow for yourself. If you get antsy and fertilize, I can envision an algae issue.


 Erin (My wife) wondered about that too, but I'm going to try to do both. Hopefully by overstocking and not planting too densely in either place we'll be okay. Algae could be a concern, true. Hopefully I'll be able to keep a good cleaning crew in the tank. I'm thinking 2-3 BN Plecos for the walls and a shoal of Cories for the floor. (It's a 75 gal, so I'll need kind of a big cleanup crew).



> So, the plumbing is similar to a sump, except it is above the tank? Cool... so where does the canister filter fit into this? I kinda figured it would just be a biological filter to start and a mechanical filter in the end.


 The plumbing is kind of like a sump, I guess, except there's no overflow box in my current plan to keep the grow bed from draining completely because I was just going to put the drains in the floor of the grow bed to encourage easy drainage. Now that you comment on that, though, I will remember to change the plans to put the drains half way up a wall. 

The Canister Acts as both a bio filter and a mechanical filter. As long as the inside of it stays wet and hospitable to bacteria, I can't think of why they'd die and the more bacteria you have, the more nitrifying power you have to convert fish waste to plant food more quickly.

If I stay with a constantly emersed aqauaponic setup, it keeps the water flowing constantly without a whole lot of PVC connections that may or may not be tight fitting. The More connections you have, the more chance you have of introducing air into the system in the wrong place or, worse, leaking.

If I eventually decide I'd like an ebb and flow system, the canister is still a better choice for me than a regular water pump or power head would be because it's quieter and more (or equally, depending on the pump you're comparing to) powerful. In addition, because the canister is below the tank, it still holds its siphon (and bacteria) with the outflow tube's water staying at tank level. So when the timer would kick it on, there would be very little need to re-prime. It's also not in the tank itself looking ugly and taking up room. I really hate the look of too much equipment in my tanks.



> Also, why is there mud? I thought hydroponics worked without soil.


Hydroponics and Aquaponics do work without soil. I had the Perlite/Moss combination in my original tank and growbed setup to provide and soak up nutrients for the extra boost it would give the plants. I also wavered a bit between hacving a constant flow system and an ebb and flow and reasoned that in an ebb and flow with that mixture, the roots could still get oxygen when the water wasn't in the grow bed but the moss could still provide nutrients in that time and the perlite could keep those nutrients near the roots.

I also reasoned that because with my DIY lights, I can't seem to get the right color light powerfully enough to the bottom of the tank, I could probably only keep low-light plants at best. Knowing that and that the majority of low-light plants that I like are root-feeders, I thought I'd use the moss and perlite to make sure that there were enough nutrients and nutrient-holding material to feed those roots well. Basically it was me being overcautious and overzealous about getting enough nutrients to all the plants.

In the plastic grow bed sitting on my window sill, I still have some Perlite (I swear, you can't get rid of the stuff once you put it into the system without hours of cleaning! grrr..) and some rocks. There are spots where there's still moss too, because I haven't taken the time to clean my growing media as meticulously as I'd like. I will probably do that before moving all the rocks to the new wooden grow bed you saw in the picture.

I'll have to clean the media by dumping it into a big bucket of water, then skimming off the floaters with a fish net, then dump the sinkers into a colander or sifter of some sort and hose it off. Then if there's any undesirable muck still in the colander, I'll have to pick through it by hand and add only the rocks back into the growbed. It's a long, wet process that I haven't had the time to do or wanted to do yet. Plus some of the seeds in the plastic grow bed have started to sprout, so I may need to water that grow bed by hand and wait until those plants are ready to be either transplanted or pulled out before I can use that particular media again or even clean it. Hrm, Maybe it's just easier to buy more pea gravel from the home improvement store....


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

The DIY intake screen/PVC Drain finally succeeded in breaking the canister's siphon yesterday. I noticed it when I got home. So there goes that brilliant idea. I guess if I ever get fry in the tank, we'll just have to be extra watchful of the the canister filter to make sure we get them out if they get sucked up. 

I've tried nylon stockings on the filter intake in the past. That never broke the siphon (as far as I remember) but it did get clogged with plant debris quickly. What have you all tried to solve this problem?


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## gonathan85 (Sep 12, 2009)

hamstermann said:


> The DIY intake screen/PVC Drain finally succeeded in breaking the canister's siphon yesterday. I noticed it when I got home. So there goes that brilliant idea. I guess if I ever get fry in the tank, we'll just have to be extra watchful of the the canister filter to make sure we get them out if they get sucked up.
> 
> I've tried nylon stockings on the filter intake in the past. That never broke the siphon (as far as I remember) but it did get clogged with plant debris quickly. What have you all tried to solve this problem?


I just use a piece of semi-dense filter sponge.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

If you ever need proof that lights have different colors and that those colors affect plants, here you go. I have 5 lights over my tank in the DIY light box and those lights are 3 different colors. In the direct middle of the tank is a 100 watt equivalent CFL light (I want to say it's a 5500k, but I'm not positive.) on either side of that light, you can see small circles of blue. Those are 90watt equivalent 6500K grow lights. That's close to the right color temperature but (amazingly) not bright enough for what I need. On the outside ends of the light box are 120 Watt Par38 Outdoor Flood lights. You can see at the ends of the tank that this is the only light that gets to the bottom of the tank as brightly as I'd like. Unfortunately, the color is wrong so it's still not helping the plants as much.










so what does that do to the water and plants? Well, Look at the next picture. Green Water and algae covered plants. No Fun! I'll have to look into other options for light which is really frustrating for me since I worked so hard to build that light box and thought I had a nice mix of color to keep the plants happy while letting it be bright enough for people to enjoy as well. Grrr....










In this shot, you can see the holes I drilled. I will put the outflow from my canister in the diagonally opposite corner, facing the back of the box in hopes of avoiding any low-flow dead spots.










The original plan was to coat the box in sweet water epoxy to water proof it. Home Depot and Lowes don't sell that as far as I can tell, so I went with another plan. I spread clear epoxy around on the wood to fill holes and knots, then scattered white epoxy around the bed to acts as both waterproofing and glue for some black painter's plastic that I'm hoping will keep things waterproof.










In this pic, I have started to lay down the plastic and kind of rub it into place to bond it to the caulk, eliminate as many air bubbles as I can, and get it read to staple and trim. I just kind of threw the black plastic on the box, making sure that the lengthwise fold looked like it was in the middle, then I started smoothing from the middle out. i'm not sure how to fold or trim the plastic to avoid it bunching in the corners, but I'd like to have started at one end and worked my way across, smoothing as I went in order to avoid the air bubbles I still have a few of now.










The other problem I had was a small rip (the white you see in the photo) where one of the sides met the floor and there was an air bubble I was trying to push caulk toward. so I finished pushing caulk towartd it, hoping to fill the hole in the plastic and behind it. Then I caulked more over the top and smoothed it with my finger. Here's hoping it's enough to keep it water-tight.










After I smoothed the caulk and plastic as much as I had patience for, I stapled the plastic to the outside. I didn't do it a consistent distance between staples or anything, just shot the staples into where the plastic looked a bit loose.









Here's the semi-finished product. I will wait for a couple of days for the caulk to set, then I will use a razor blade to cut an "x" into the plastic at the drilled holes and try to install the PVC and DIY bulk heads.

on the location of the Holes I drilled - I kind of wavered between putting the holes halfway up the back wall and putting them where I did. In theory, with the holes halfway up (as I said in a previous post), it would hold some water in the tank if the power died or the filter/pump lost its siphon for some other reason.

This time around, though, instead of making the bulk heads with male and female bushings, I'm making them with female bushings and a Thread to smooth coupling. I think the female couplings will stick up into the grow bed enough that it will hold a small amount of water in the tank still, so I ended up going with holes in the bottom.

here's hoping it holds water. all that's left now is to wait and see.

Also in that last pic, you can see the coffee table/hamster cages that I built. That's just proof that even though I'm having difficulty with this particular project, I CAN actually build diy stuff that works.


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

this is a fun project to watch develop. plumbing tanks is stimulating, huh? LOL. looking good- keep us updated. 

I think DIY projects are a blast and yes, difficult at times! keep it up!


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

Yesterday was a pretty good day as far as the Awuaponic project goes. I found a new T5 strip that holds 2 bulbs at Home Depot for under $40 so that's helping the lack of light in the tank, I believe. Hopefully I'll eventually be able to get some lights for it that are the right spectrum. I think right now they have Soft White or Bright White and I want daylight or 6700K for them.










When I went to check on the drying drains, I foudn that I didn't have 1" female bushings, I had 1 to 3/4 inch reducing bushings. So I switched them out for another type of fitting whose name I can't remember right now, but this is probably a better thing because these fittings are taller so keep more water in the grow bed and they allow for the full 1" connection ( though it did take some additional drilling and caluking - the 3/4 in ch connection was tight so I had to make the hole bigger for the 1" connection).

You can't really see the down pipes inside the tank. I tried to cut them so they hide behind the black plastic rim at the top of the tank. The only place you can really see them is aove the light box:










(Sorry about the weird angle on this last shot. It was hard to get the shot at all because there's so little room between the tank/stand and the wall. )
From the back, you can see that only one pipe goes very far into the water. I think the other two just barely touch it.










I also managed to figure out why that cheap knock-off canister filter I originally bought wasn't working. The O-ring that goes between the motor and the canister somehow migrated off of the motor and was found by my 4 and 1 year old sons. So I've got that back on now and it only leaks if you tip the canister. Also, it pumps much better now that I've got the stand tall enough to put the canister underneath the tank and removed all the filter media from the canister. Amazing what placing the canister within the proper head range, using the right tubing without additional barbs, and removing almost anything that creates friction and pressure can do. I'm mainly just using it now to try to kill the algae with the UV bulb in the canister,but I may have to put some filter media back in because right now the flow rate's too high to expose the algae to the light for very long.

I have the XP turned off while the caulk in the grow bed dries. Hopefully the bacteria I have growing in there will survive while I wait. I had to turn it off because I've left the hose to the spray bar much longer than the hose from the intake so that it will reach the growbed. That was causing some cavitation with the outflow hose was in the tank because it was so long that it wound in a circle vertically before heading into the tank. I didn't really want to lose/break the impeller and motor after spending so much money to buy the XP, so I chose to risk the bacteria and turn it off.

I also bought some fish the other day for the tank - I now have a gold Severum, 3or 4 Boesmani Rainbow fish and some other kind of rainbow whose name I can't remember - they're a pretty blue-green.

So all in all a great day. I just hope that silicone hurries up so I can get the grow bed wet and make sure it holds water.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

Six said:


> this is a fun project to watch develop. plumbing tanks is stimulating, huh? LOL. looking good- keep us updated.
> 
> I think DIY projects are a blast and yes, difficult at times! keep it up!


Thanks for the encouragement. I'm glad that it's interesting to other people too.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

The caulk seemed dry enough tonight to give it a shot, so I plugged the XP in and let it fill up. At first it seemed too good to be true. Everything filled up and I didn't see any leaks. I excitedly watched the water drop down the tubes and realized a few things: 

1: Even with the pipes plumbed down to the water, we'll still hear water running. 

2 the two pipes that I thought touched the water don't actually touch it. 

3: it WAS too good to be true. 

The seams of the box still leak somehow, though I'm not sure how because I overfilled them, smoothed the caulk with my fingertips, and let it dry and act as glue for the black plastic. The plastic must/may have moved or weakened the caulk somehow or maybe pulled it away from the sides when I started filling it, I guess. 

Rather than take it apart to find out what happened, I just used half a tube of caulk on all the outer seems, which I hadn't done before. Now It's drying again and hopefully will do better with another waterproofing test tomorrow. 

Any suggestions or questions you guys have are always welcome. It can only make things better.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

Well, the wooden Grow box was re-caulked and failed another leak test so That idea was scrapped. In order to make that work I'd probably have to coat the box (inside and out) in half an inch of silicone. I went back to trying to make a sterilite bin work. This time I drilled the 3 holes in the bottom, but the middle hole splintered so I upped that plumbing to 1 1/4 inch and caulked like crazy to try to fill the holes. then I tried to caulk again this morning. We'll take a look tonight and see if it's ready for a water test. I sure hope this works.

On the good side, though, The tank water is clearing. we can see the plants at the back wall more easily now, though the water is still a bit green and cloudy. Hopefully it will be clear soon. And, as a bonus, we don't seem to have lost any fish through this process!


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

I forgot that my fiance created a DIY sump with pond liner. Worked great. If the plastic doesn't work, try finding some pond liner. If you can't find pond rubber- try a roofing place. Probably cheaper too.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

Thanks for the idea, Six. I may end up trying that, but it may have to be a while. The credit card has filled up mighty quickly through this process and I've got the holidays and my wife and daughter's birthdays coming up, so if we can't get the sterilite bin to work, I won't give up. I'll just have to wait a few months until we can get financially sound again. In theory, this should be a fairly cheap project. I tend to learn by trial and error, though, and that type of education adds up quickly. 

How thick and tough is pond liner? I think I saw some at Home depot once and it looked like visquene plastic, but slightly thicker. I always thought it would be a bit spongier feeling than that. 

The Sterilite bin failed the leak test :frusty: so I asked my wife to pull the Silicone off and see if she could get it to work. If I can't do something, she can usually do it with no problem. (Awesome how marriage can work like that, eh?) so we'll see if her silicone job works. I sure hope it does. I want to start growing plants already. :hungry:


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## lazyfisherman (Oct 19, 2009)

ok so i haven't read the whole journal yet but i notice some mistakes i made before, so this is my advise.

Use fish safe silicon, not caulk. the silicon holds watertight.

Use male to female adapters to connect to the grow bed, the tension is what makes it water proof you have to use pipe tape in the treads and around the actual connection, in between the black plastic and the rim of the male adapter. 

start to screw in the adapter, when it is almost 'tight' rap inbetween the rim on the adapter and the black plastic with a liberal amount of pipe tape then finish screw in the adapters tight.

I use this method when i run out of rubber washers.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

lazyfisherman said:


> ok so i haven't read the whole journal yet but i notice some mistakes i made before, so this is my advise.
> 
> Use fish safe silicon, not caulk. the silicon holds watertight.


I've been using GE Silicone I caulk for Kitchen,Bath,and Plumbing since it says it's 100% silicone and doesn't have the anti-mildew stuff they put in Silicone II. Is that what you mean or is there another type/brand of silicone that's safer and works better?



lazyfisherman said:


> Use male to female adapters to connect to the grow bed, the tension is what makes it water proof you have to use pipe tape in the treads and around the actual connection, in between the black plastic and the rim of the male adapter.
> 
> start to screw in the adapter, when it is almost 'tight' rap inbetween the rim on the adapter and the black plastic with a liberal amount of pipe tape then finish screw in the adapters tight.
> 
> I use this method when i run out of rubber washers.


I'd never have thought of using the thread tape outside of threads. We have some on hand, so I'll give that a shot next time I work on it (hopefully tonight, but We'll have to see what my econ class and children demand of me.  )

Thanks!


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## lazyfisherman (Oct 19, 2009)

If your a safety freak (or not) remember that aquaponics is a 'closed loop' system, meaning that the only way out for the chemicals is through the food you consume, so if you chose some materials that leaches nasties you will be eating them, all.

Just make sure that you can see some pipe tape being squeezed out once you tighten, but i found that a rubber washer works good too.

I am in the plumbing business as well and i use normal %100 silicon (it works best) for my aquaponics projects because there is very little contact with the water, but they are some silicons that are deemed food safe


keep us informed we are waiting to see how these turns out.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

Well, asking Erin to handle the caulking on this version seemed to have worked for 3 days. We hooked it up on Friday night and it worked!










The Drains are draining and looking great!










Here are the pipes, leakless and working beautifully. Erin Caulked the tops of these in the 2x4 one day, then screwed in the tops the next day and caulked around the bottoms of those in the grow bed. Then she told me I wasn't allowed to touch or test them until Friday (3-4 days away) so they had time to completely dry. It worked for a bit because we had 3 days after filling, without tragedy or leaks.










Here's the grow bed filled with some rocks and water, looking all ready for planting. After 3 days, our peas had sprouted, which made the eventual leak all the more difficult.










Here's a wide shot of the full growbed and tank before I put the rocks in. The water is clear (though the bottom of the tank is carpeted in algae - that's a fight we're still fighting. Hopefully as the plants in the grow bed start to root and grow, they will suck up all the nutrients in the water and the alge will go away.) and beautiful.










Here's a picture of a leak - you can kind of see it against the white PVC. Two of the pipes leaked on the setup that Erin caulked - just out of the blue on Monday it started to leak and went onto the brick wall behind the tank and down the back of the tank. This was pretty worrisome because we were losing water and the water was going to places where we had electrical connections.

We sort of solved the issue by pulling off the supports from the side of the tank and removing the 2x4 shelves that the grow bed sat on. then we turned the grow bed 180 degrees so the pipes and holes were in the front and set the grow bed directly on the top of the light box. This looks better and gives more room for tall plants and a more even distribution of light. The problem is that the leak is still there. I need to switch out the pvc parts in the grow bed so that there's a more flush connection which should be more airtight. Lazy Fisherman also suggested that I use waterproofing thread tape instead of rubber o-rings, so I'll have to try that to see if I get a tighter connection.

For now, though, the leak is just putting the water in the front right corner of the tank and a little bit splashes out onto the recliner and floor next to the tank where we have a towel to catch it.

The other things that I learned in this process are:
1) Garlic does not grow aquaponically
2) garlic rots in water and gravel when the fish water can't cycle through the tank (we were trying to grow it in an old growbed version while we got the current version worked out)
3) rotton garlic will not come off of rocks easily - I've tried laundry soap and axe body wash, alternating soaking and rinsing. The rocks that were in the old grow bed still stink. I may have to try bleach, then a whole bunch of dechlorinator. I just really don't want to do that.


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## fishyerik (Oct 8, 2008)

Great work!

About the fish, the common mozambique tilapia - _Oreochromis mossambicus_ comes in two color versions, one "bred" that's yellow with some pink/red tinges, not fantastically good looking, but not dull either. And then there's the wild form with really dull females, but the males in breeding color, which they almost always are in, is really spectacular fish, velvet black, red edges on the fins, cream white cheeks and blueish lower lip.

The bad part with mozambique tilapia is that you can't have fragile plants with them, and the males dig breeding pits, none of these problems should weigh out the good things: In your system you'll be able to pack them as densely as you want and they'll still be happy. The will eat most types of algae, they even filter feed planktonic algae.

You have to feed them really well so they don't nibble on even semi hard plants, but that should not be a problem in your case. Well fed they will grow fast and big, but they're really easy to breed and with a lot of plants in the tank a few fry usually grows up even without any help from the keeper, so all you probably have to do about the fast growing is "harvesting" the fish that has grown too big.

You can't put stress sensitive fish in a tank with o lot of tilapias, no stress sensitive fish like to be packed with a lot of fish, but you could add some goldfish for more color and a few medium size or bigger plec's for algae control in those places that are hard for the tilapias to reach. And yes, goldfish will also have to be well fed, or they'll eat most types of plants.


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## hamstermann (Sep 12, 2009)

Thanks, Fishyerik - I'm not fond of seafood, so my fish are mostly kept for looks. So far in the tank, I have mollies, Feeder Guppies, Turqoise Rainbows, Boesmani Rainbows, a couple of otocinclus, and some clown plecos.

I switched out the pieces in the grow bed for more flat/flush fitting female couplings and added a whole bunch of thread tape to the connection, then I also used 2 rubber o-rings to seal the connections under the grow bed. This seems to have solved most of the leakage problem.

I also put large rocks over the top of the pipes in the grow bed, posistioned so that water could still drain but I was able to bury the pipes in gravel. it looks better and sounds better too.

Another modification I made is putting the canister filter whose output is in the grow bed on a timer. It spends the first half of every hour pumping water and then the second half it's turned off to allow the plants more oxygen. I was hoping the water would get enough oxygen from tumbling down the pipes and into the tank, but it doesn't seem so because our seeds sprout, then don't get the fast growth that I've read so much about with aquaponics.

I also don't think enough nitrates are getting to the grow bed, so I pulled out a couple stalks of mermaid weed and added some mollies in the hopes that they will multiply quickly and have enough babies survive that the population explodes in the tank. Either that or the babies will feed the other inhabitants so well that they'll grow and produce more waste. either way, the bio-load should increase and the nitrates will grow along with it.

I'm also not worrying about skimping on the food anymore - The BGA seems to have gone away completely as I've put more 6500K lights in there, so I'm over that hurdle and it's not sucking up all the nitrates anymore either.

The one good thing about the BGA being in the tank, though, was that now I can say I've had something pearl.


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