Building My Aquaponics Proof of Concept

After reading and watching YouTube for hours on end, I decided that the most economical test was based on this video, "Building an ibc aquaponic system"   This system is a single growbed and fish tank made from an IBC tote which is a thick plastic walled, food-grade container in a steel cage.  

Finding the grow-media that they used, Hydroton, is nearly impossible here for a decent price.  I could order it from a Sears-partner for $32 a bag.  I would need 7 bags... $224 + shipping.  In Louisiana, gravel is common and cheap.  I needed between 12 and 14 cubic feet or half of a yard (27 cubic feet) of  gravel (not pea... they call it "river gravel").  22 dollars for half a cubic yard.

Building the BaseI decided to build my base out of materials that I had on hand.  6 stepping stones and a bunch of bricks.  I leveled the ground with gravel, laid my stones and bricks in a pattern and filled in the spaces with gravel.

Preparing the Fish Tank and Growbed
The next step was tearing down and cutting the tote.  I followed the advice of the video to the letter.  I cut the bottom 1' so that I would be able to use the base as a frame to hold up the grow bed.  I had set up the stones & bricks so that the rest of the frame would rest on them.

Cutting up the tote itself and cleaning it out went really smoothly.  My yard smelled like liquid smoke for a few days.  I wonder if my neighbors suddenly had any urges to barbeque...

I supported the bottom of the grow bed with 4 2x4s just as the video shows.  I was careful to make sure that the placement of the boards carried the load of the growbed because it is going to be HEAVY.


Plumbing the Drain and Bell Siphon
All of the plumbing is 3/4".  If you notice in the center of the "growbed" there is a black circle.  That is the original fill hole for the tote.  This is where I drilled the 3/4" hole for the stand-tube.

Based on another video, I used a conduit male fitting with an o-ring and a conduit female fitting to better seal the fitting at the bottom of the growbed.  The standpipe itself is the ;ast 7" of the end of a 20' pipe that has the female opening for next 20' pipe.  That gives the top of the standpipe a wider opening.

The bell siphon was to be a 9" long 2" pipe with end-cap and then the outer strainer is a 1' long 4" pipe with 3/16 holes drilled in a 1x1" grid at the top and a 3/4x3/4 grid for the bottom 3". 

I say "was to be" because I wanted to test an idea that I saw in this video, "How a bell siphon works."  I used a tall 2" diameter plastic water bottle.  I cut off the bottom and made the vent holes for a 1 1/2" minimum water height in the growbed.

Pump and Water Delivery
I bought a 300 gallon per hour pond pump from Harbor Freight for 20 bucks and some flex tubing.  The pump sits at the base of the fish tank with the flex tubing feeding a 3/4" valve which leads to the plumbing over the side of the growbed to a T.  I cut 4 pieces to fit the edges of the growbed and drilled 3/16" holes every 2 to 3 inches on the bottom side of the tubes.  This will disperse the water along the edges of the growbed and keep the bacterial filter even across the bed.

Grow Media - Time To Add the Gravel
I left the water running and pulled the siphon, but left the strainer in place.  I rinsed the gravel as best as I could right in the back of my truck and then again before I put each bucket of gravel into the bed. Keeping the   After evening out the gravel and bring the media up to 1 to 1 1/2" above the water line, I put back in the siphon.

Cycling the System
Now there are many videos about building a system and there are quite a few that show yields and just showing off their systems.  Videos and webpages on getting the system to cycle for the first time are much more rare.  This is the hard part, getting the cycle of ammonia to nitrite to nitrate cycle to start.

I added a rather large bell pepper to the back corner of the bed and added 2 gallons of water from a healthy koi pond.