You can turn any aquarium into an Aquaponics System
A while back, we did a post showing this area of the Growroom when we had just set up this aquarium to work as our Tilapia nursery. In that earlier post, the aquarium was just an aquarium with the traditional aquarium filter on the left corner filtering out the fish waste toxins. However, our adult Tilapia in the big 320 gallon tank in this Growroom are so happy with their 80 degree plus degree water and their Tilapia Nesting Condos that they started mating like crazy and produced about 400 offspring, which you can see in this aquarium.
There were now too many fish for the little aquarium filter to handle. So what do you do when you want to house a lot more fish in an aquarium than the filter can handle? You turn the aquarium into a Mini Aquaponics System. We went to Home Depot and bought this 7″ deep black, 5 gallon mixing tray, which we turned into a Grow Bed. We filled it with hydroton, plumbed it and planted lettuce seedlings into it. WALA! A Tilapia Nursery as a Mini Aquaponics System.
The next thing you have to figure out is how much to feed these little guys to keep the system stable. We started out over feeding them; and when we did our water quality measurements, we had way too much ammonia in the system. In fact, the ammonia was so high it was almost lethal. Now, one of the great things about Tilapia is they are so hardy, which makes them capable of withstanding those kinds of mistakes so not one of them died. Tilapia are also gill sifters so they are getting a lot of their nutrition from the algae that naturally forms in the water and on the tank. We are feeding them the #O FAST GROWTH TILAPIA FISH FOOD that we sell on our website and we’re giving them l tsp. a day.
As we prepare to leave for Tucson for five days to assemble and install the three systems in three elementary schools, what do we do about our Greenhouse and
Growroom? We lock the doors and let the systems take care of themselves. We are so confident about the technology behind our Food Forever™ Growing Systems that we can actually leave them unattended for five days without worry. We have automatic fish feeders on all five of our tanks so our fish won’t even notice we’re gone; and because you recirculate the water continuously, we don’t need to add any to the system over a five day period.
Raising baby Tilapia and Lettuce in a Mini Aquaponics System
So off we go. We’ll be bringing back lots of pictures of our adventures in the Tucson school installation and Phoenix where we’ll be picking up our 6,000 watts of solar panels for our next big “Getting Off The Grid” project.
Continue to have a healthy and happy Holiday Season.
Love, Grace
I would like to observe the installation of your system at one of the schools in Tucson.
Don Clay
3895 N. Bear Canyon Rd
Tucson, AZ 85749
520 638-6002
Hi Don: Sure, we’d be happy to have you as an observer as long as the schools say its okay. I have your phone number and will give you a call with the addresses of the schools. We’ll be starting tomorrow.
Thanks for your interest in Aquaponics USA.
Grace
This is a really great looking system. We have been wanting to assemble one locally and see if we can get grants to convert dead real estate to productive farming possibilities!