Apartment Aquaponics the Other AA

the goal here is to show you how the system works and talk about some of the things I have learned well building my Apartment Aquaponics system.

for this I did allot of 3d printing so if you would like to build along you will need a 3d printer, some good scissors and allot of time.

step on understanding the system you will be building.

what is aquaponics?

well Aquaponics is a food production system that couples aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as fish, crayfish, snails or prawns in tanks) with the hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) whereby the nutrient-rich aquaculture water is fed to hydroponically-grown plants, where nitrifying bacteria convert ammonia into nitrates.

So it is just hydroponics with fish poop?

well long story short... yes

so lets go over the main parts needed for this system:

Fish tank:

The place to keep the fish, im using 2 55 gallon food grade barrels.

a good rule of thumb is 24 square inches of water for every 1 inch of fish I have 15 White Nile Tilapia and they can reach up to  reaching up to 24 inches in length now some of you math stud might be thinking 110 gallon does not equal the 3476 you would need to allow all the fish to grow all the way and you would be right, but i am not planning allowing them to all get to full grown and will more then likely harvest once they get to 11 inches.

sediment tank:

filters out the big stuff

biofilter:

filter the smaller bits

hydroponic tank for this photo:

we will be using towers.

water pump and air pump:

i feel there are well kind of a no brainer one is used to move the water and one is use to keep the oxygen in the system so the fish does not die.

still need to add video for better understanding.

now i know not eveyone has the limited space i do as someone who grew up in the midwest i know that my NYC apartment is severly limilted in space. so this will not be a issue for allot of you. but for me i had to fist make sure i had the space i would need for the systems needs

now that you understand the diffrent systems you can have and you have planned out the how you can set the stage if you will to get every thing ready and start building/ printing and really just over all get things ready.

fish tank, for mine I used two 55 gallon food grade barrels.

sediment tank/biofilter I used 5 gallon food grade bucket with the water coming in to the top of of the sediment bucket and then going out near the to of the bucket in to the biofilter un the filter i have a bio filter media and i was using a airpump to move things up.

lets start with stl files:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5389767/files

base: the base I use over just using the normal ones I could find on sites like thingiving and sights like I was having a bunch of plants sitting on the top of the buckets so i wanted to raise them so i did not see that anymore. i also up a funnel at the base so that I would not have them hitting the wood base.

mid: I used the one i could find on line here:

Top/water distrabution point: for this i needed to add three part togeather in order to make a better distrbution point. and have a one inch tube attach to the top.

for this I used 1 inch tubing

fist build:

I started with one tower and edited what i liked and what i did not like in the last three.

add on:

in the water intake I put a water intake cut off valve for each tower for maintenance and so that I could limit water to them if needed.

I also added a foist type of thing in so i was not dipping my water bucket in to that reservoirs and making a mess.