1 A New Beginning

An early post at 3x5 Aquaponics
Just today I was reflecting that I needed a new name for my blog.

I started an aquaponics blog almost a year ago. At the time, I wanted to prototype an indoor DIY system that would allow year-round gardening. I picked the name 3x5 Aquaponics because:

Anyone with a 3 by 5 area (that can literally support a ton of water/gravel/etc.) can have an aquaponics system for well under $1000. Thats under $1000 complete with lights, fish, and rocks (most experts recommend home aquaponicists stick to rock-based systems).

I designed the system and created a prototype. Seeds sprouted, and I transplanted them to the garden.

It worked. But the taller my plants grew, the more I envied those who can grow outside. When my tilapia "failed to thrive," I was free to create a system outside.

The garden grew...

July 2011
And grew...

August 24th, after a month away
And grew.

After Hurricane Irene swept past, August 28th

Im loving this aquaponics adventure. Alas, "3x5 Aquaponics" doesnt really describe what Im doing now. What new name could I pick?

Then I browsed to the Aquaponics Association website, to review what the site is promising about what Ill present this month in Orlando...

...Meg Stout of "365" Aquaponics
365 Aquaponics.

Year-round gardening.

Its perfect to fit where I am now in my journey, as well as including my original idea of a small indoor system.

So thank you, thank you, thank you to whoever decided I was Meg Stout of 365 Aquaponics.

For the next year Ill continue to blog here about what Im doing, with design details, tales of joy and woe, and pictures (always pictures)!

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5 Connecting the Fish Tank and Sump

Piping connecting the fish tank to the sump
It’s not always true that water flows downhill.

What is true is “fluid will flow from higher pressure to lower pressure.” In order to achieve this equilibrium, water will do some pretty whacky things. What we want to do is connect the fish tank and the sump such that:

• Water in the fish tank will never siphon out completely
• Water from the bottom of the fish tank will leave the tank, carrying away solids
• No openings are large enough to ‘suck’ small fish out of the fish tank
• My ‘sump’ can rest on the same surface as my fish tank

Tall order! But it can be done. I want to acknowledge up front that I didn’t invent this design from scratch. It is a modification of the “Constant Height of Pond” or CHOP systems originally popularized by Murray Hallam, as so beautifully explained in this post by ecofilms: CHOP and CHOP2. My ‘addition’ is translating this into standard pipe sizes that can be found in the US. The 365 Aquaponics design is partway between CHOP and CHOP2 - like a CHOP1.5.

The drain out of the fish tank must be higher than the drain into the sump. If the sump is higher than the fish tank, you’ll never persuade the water to leave the fish tank. But the piping between the fish tank and the sump can bend or run under the ground if needed so the gardener can walk freely between the tanks. The three sketches below are “equivalent,” as far as successfully draining water from the fish tank to the sump.

Water will flow from high pressure to low pressure
But it isn’t enough to just connect the drain from the fish tank to the drain into the sump. I want to pull water from the bottom of the fish tank, where all the nutrient-rich sediment collects. So I’ll put some simple pipes into my fish tank to pull water from the bottom, as seen in this picture of my prototype:

The fish tank, with pipes to suck water up from the bottom
One minor issue with using the standard, inexpensive, pipe sizes is that sometimes the water level in the fish tank rises faster than the water can escape through just the lower parts of the two pipes. In that case, I allow water to escape through the top of the pipes into the drain. Below is a video clip of me drilling the holes in the fish tank and sump and installing the bulkheads.

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