I grew up in and around nature, watching how Mother Nature developed systems of organisms that worked together in a fascinating symbiotic relationship. Anemones and clownfish, bees and flowers, humans and gut bacteria, and many others.

One of my favorite systems is a closed aquatic system where the plants used sunlight to grow, providing food for the fish, that then, in turn, provided body wastes to help stimulate the plant growth. With only sunlight as an outside input the system required nothing else to function. Amazon offers a small version, the Ecosphere, only with shrimp instead of fish, but it’s the same idea. See it here:

It always amazed me how everything worked in balance. The simplicity of the interactions were like magic to me. In my mind, it was as close to a perpetual motion machine as I probably would ever see.

In the last few years, I’ve been kicking around a similar idea, called aquaponics. Aquaponics is a combination of  aquaculture or raising fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks, with hydroponics, or cultivating plants in water, in a symbiotic system.

Let’s assume a few things. We are growing lettuce, duck weed, and tilapia. With that in mind, it works like this:

Tilapia swim around in the water, eating the duck weed, and produce fish waste. The duck weed takes up some of the waste as nutrients. Water, full of the remaining fish waste, is pumped into another container, allowing the water to wash across lettuce roots. The lettuce roots extract the remaining wastes as fertilizer, as well as take up whatever water they require. The water is filtered out by the duck weed and the lettuce, and returned to the tilapia, giving them clean water to live in.

With only the sun as an input, the fish grow, the water plants grow, and the lettuce grows, right? It’s like MAGIC! You get fresh fish AND a side salad!

Only we didn’t mention the power for the pump. I’ve always had a problem with that part. How can I consider it a self-sustaining project, if there is a constant electricity input? My electric bill is high enough already, without a pump running 24/7.

Then I combined the aquaponics idea with another project on my bucket list, solar power.

By utilizing a 12 volt pump, powered by a solar panel, I could run my entire system with zero inputs, once established.

The very first thing I decided was that I’d do it all on my own, no outside help, as far as asking a professional how to do it. I’m too damned independent to pay for something I can learn on my own. (I owe that trait to my dad, show I hope reads this and laughs at me. He probably could have made the entire setup in a weekend, he was always building stuff from scratch when I was a kid. Gotta love hillbilly ingenuity!)

So of I went, trying to learn everything I could on aquaponics, what to grow, how to grow it, what type of system worked best, what fish would grow in my climate, what, how, when why…I tried to learn it all. And thanks to youtube, google, and lots of time and mistakes, I’ve now got it working. Mostly. At least enough to start writing about it.

I started by looking at off-the-shelf options, and quickly dismissed everything I saw, as either too expensive, or too cheaply made. Harbor Freight offers a three panel 45 watt setup for $200-ish that would work…but for around the same money, I could get a single panel, but would have to buy components, racks, wiring, etc. What to do???

As far as containers went, and IBC tote (275 and 330 gallon capacity) would be perfect, but again, they were pricey, WHEN they could be found that hadn’t held some nasty chemical. Being frugal makes moving projects forward difficult. What other options could I try? Stock tanks? 55 gallon drums? Price was a definite factor…

And what to use for a pump? Since I was running a low-voltage system, probably 12v, could I use a bilge pump? Living so close to the water (and boats),  I had access to lots of them, I’d have to give them a try. But would they hold up to continual use? Time would tell. OR what about a wash down pump? Or something off of a car, they all ran 12v systems.

Ive spent over a year working towards growing fish in my back yard. Starting Monday,  I’ll be covering what I’ve done, what worked, what hasn’t, and what my results have been. When I’m finished writing, you might be able  to build your own. And if your are nearby, I might even help! It was actually a rather fun project.

So next week, I’ll be covering:

• Bell siphon, the magic of the system
• The solar panels, the power behind the power
• The charge controller, the mastermind and Command Central of the operation
• The Batteries, the storage point that allows the system to work when the sun isn’t shining.
• The containers, growth media, fish, plants
• Building it all and the plumbing setup
• My future expansion

Stick around, you may just learn something, I know *I* did!

Peace,
db