Aquaponics in the News

Got to spend the morning with one of my shale customers while they presented their system to CT Governor Dan Malloy and the Commissioner for the Department of Agriculture, Steven Reviczky. This footage was taken at the Arc of Meriden in their greenhouse



Other News Links:

Meriden Record-Journal
WTNH News 8
Patch.com

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Another Teaser Video

I know some of you find these teasers agonizing, but heres the next one! Dont worry, the project is almost done and I wont torture you with these videos anymore!

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Revision to the Rocket Mass Heater

I made a design revision to the rocket mass heater.  It makes a huge difference with being able to remove the ash out of the burn tunnel.

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Building a Rocket Mass Heater

The rocket mass heater is up and running and its quite the inferno!  It will be quite interesting to add some enhancements to it in the future.  Im hoping to cover the entire unit and pump the heat under the floor to increase the thermal mass.  And, make it so it can burn either wood or pellets!

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Burning Pellets in a Rocket Mass Heater

After a few prototypes, a few burns, and singeing the hair off of my hands, heres my solution to burning pellets in a rocket mass heater.  Burns hot and super clean.

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Installing a tank window

I installed 2 viewing windows in my 1000 gallon stock tank for the aquaponic system.

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Doors Floors and Dome Foam

Made a lot of progress on the inside over the cold winter months.




Heres the transcript:

We’re nearing the end of the project!  There will be one more video after this with some of the finishing touches and then I’ll go on to some other videos about the aquaponic setup.  You may also notice that some of these segments may look out of order.  I was working on everything at the same time depending on the weather, but wanted to group similar segments together to create a better story line.

I needed a large door in the dome so that I could move tanks and grow beds in and out of the building.  Garage doors leak a lot of air so I decided to build some custom doors.  The doors were framed using 2 by 4’s and pressure treated plywood.  When they are completed, they are bolted to some strong hinges and anchored directly into the building’s frame.  I still need to add some gaskets and weather stripping to create a good air-tight seal.

I also needed to remove some of the struts from the dome structure to make a larger opening for the equipment.  I removed 6 struts and it didn’t seem to make any difference with dome’s structural integrity.

To level out the floor, I brought in several yards of sand and spread it throughout the building.  I then racked it out and roughly leveled it out by eye.

Now that the sand was in place, I was able to do a final leveling and compact the area where the stock tank belonged.  I decided to place the tank directly on the sand to help protect the base, and save a few dollars by not needing to put brick pavers under it.

To keep the floor from settling over time, I borrowed a plate compactor and compacted the entire area.  When this was complete, I also borrowed my neighbor’s laser level and raked out any of the high or low areas, and then compacted everything again.

There are about 5500 bricks that are used in the floor so I made up a couple of carriers which made the job go much quicker!  It’s still a lot of work to carry them all in, but at least the bricks remain flat and oriented so that setting them into place is fairly quick.  Between carrying them in and laying them out, I average 10 bricks per minute.

To get started, I set a straight string across the floor and lay out a course along the line.  This will act as the base reference for the rest of the rows.

The bricks are laid in an alternating, or basket weave pattern and can be adjusted a bit to compensate for their imperfections.

Along the edges, I roughly cut off the bricks so they would fill any gaps that were smaller than a standard brick.  Since most of these areas will be covered with grow beds, I wasn’t concerned about making them look perfect.  Any remaining voids were filled with gray sand.

The same type of cuts were made around any of the plumbing that comes up through the floor since these areas will also be well hidden by grow beds.

The shed area and northern walls are all insulated to help retain heat during the winter.  I decided to use a do-it-yourself spray foam instead of fiberglass batting because of all the odd shapes that needed to be filled. It also will reduce air leaking, and minimize mold.  The foam sticks to everything, so I had to protect the polycarbonate from over spraying by stapling painter’s plastic throughout the dome.

Not only does the foam stick to the dome, it also will stick to clothes and skin.  Full body protection, goggles, and a respirator is needed!

The foam comes as a complete kit.  Each kit contains 2 tanks with A and B parts, hoses, disposable mixing nozzles, and spray tips.

It took a little while to get used to a good spraying technique.  The first few cavities were a bit uneven, but once I got a feel for how it worked, I was able to fill the areas better.  The kits come with a fan spray for regular stud spacing, and in hindsight, it would have been better to use that tip everywhere.

The biggest problem I ran into was spraying the majority of the foam overhead.  My goggles kept getting foam on them and I couldn’t clear them.  By the time I was done with a set of tanks, I could barely see anything!

I also insulated my custom-built doors.

The fan tip worked really well at controlling the spray pattern.  The foam comes out a bit slower, but you have far more control and a more even fill.  To save a little money, I sprayed the standard sized wall cavities with one layer and plan on using standard fiberglass batting.

The knee-wall under the dome is also filled with foam.  Once it hardens, it’s easy to cut off any of the excess that sticks out.  I then cover the walls with treated plywood.

That’s about it for now.  We’ll wrap up the series finishing up the exterior and a few odds and ends. Thanks for watching!

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Building Aquaponic Grow Beds Time Lapsed

This is a time-lapsed video showing me building a deep water culture (DWC) bed and a media bed. For details about the entire build, please see this video series:   Youtube playlist

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Rocket Mass Heater preview

Heres the teaser video for the rocket mass heater.  More details to follow!

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Videos of Rocket Mass Heater and Bell Siphon

Here are a couple of videos I finally got around to putting together this weekend. The first shows a small bell siphon system I put together for a science fair last February. I used a bin I got at Ikea a few years ago, that happened to fit perfectly on top of a 10 gallon fish tank.

Over time a glass bell will start to grow an algae film, which rather defeats the purpose of having a clear bell. But its fun for a science fair or classroom.


Small system I put together for a Feb 2012 science fair

That month I also put together my final rocket mass heater configuration, using cinder block and bricks with the 55-gallon steel drum.


My Rocket Mass Heater in Feb 2012

I like using the cinder blocks in the place of the insulated section of chimney because it is far less expensive. In addition, four stacked blocks are the perfect height inside a standard 55 gallon steel drum, leaving 1.5-2 inches of space for the gases to escape at the top.

Within minutes of me posting the cinder block rocket mass heater video, someone warned me that cinder blocks explode in fire. I have had no problem with this in the fires Ive burnt in this system over the past six months. But I checked it out.

Allegedly moist cinder blocks can be a problem in fires - the water rapidly evaporates and the expanding gas can cause the blocks to shatter. My blocks arent getting wet since they are covered by the steel drum. If they were to shatter, the flying bits would be contained inside the steel drum.

While Ive read too many accounts to completely discount the danger of exploding cinder blocks, a search for exploding cinder blocks only yields videos of young men blowing up gunpowder inside a pile of cinderblocks (a really, really bad idea, by the way).

This fall Im planning to reconfigure my greenhouse so the rocket mass heater is inside the enclosure itself. That way Ill capture the radiant heat off the heater itself, not just the heat traveling through the exhaust ducting running under my grow bed. Ill also be playing with solar heating. Fun times!

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Starting the Rocket Mass Heater

Today I finished building and fired up the rocket mass heater for the geodesic dome. Ironically, its January and were having record breaking warm temperatures in the 50s but I couldnt resist and started it up. I will do a full video about the construction in the future, but wanted to share a few pictures of it. This heater is a bit different than some you may see. I wanted to be sure there was enough drafting in the chimney so I doubled up the barrels.

The entire burn tunnel is buried under the floor. It took a little while to get the drafting to start. It didnt help that the internal chimney wasnt insulated yet (missing some parts for it), but once the system got warmed up, it turned into a raging inferno.

A picture without the flash shows how well the fuel is burning in the tunnel.

I ran out of sand so I wasnt able to completely bury the horizontal exhaust. It was quite hot to the touch, but as you moved down the pipe, I could hold my hand against the duct and it was slightly warm.  It was quite funny to see the sand around the duct drying out so quickly. It will be interesting to study the temperatures along the system in the future!

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If I Were Starting from Scratch

Southern States 250 Gallon Poly Stock Tank
Southern States has apparently created their own line of stock tanks, and it almost makes me wish I could start over from scratch. These bright blue tanks are UV protected and less expensive than Rubbermaid tanks of the same volume. Plus, there are a few unique sizes and shapes, like this 250 gallon tank that could be positioned in a corner.

Now that Ive lived the life of trying to observe my relatively dark fish in a black, covered stock tank, I also like the bright blue color. It wouldnt be everyones preference, but Im always thrilled to see a new, commercially available tank option!

In other news, I found out I have a supplier for expanded shale within a pleasant drive from DC. Matthew Ferrell has started a company called HydroShale, and is selling expanded shale that is the right size for aquaponics (3/4 inch). Its a bit pricey if you need to have it shipped, but if I can pick it up, I can get it in bulk for less than even the expanded clay beads Home Depot sells online (ViaStone from ViaGrow). Nothing will ever be as inexpensive as gravel, but I do like working with these lighter materials.

In the mean time, Im just glad I finally put up my greenhouse this past weekend. The garden and fish have done amazingly well without cover for the first portion of winter, but the temperatures will remain well below freezing for most of this week. But with the protection from the wind and solar heating during the day, I expect my garden and fish will weather this bitter week adequately well. Hooray for bluegill and goldfish!

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