Hope this day finds you well.  I have been running my desktop aquaponics system for 2 weeks now and I wanted to share with you how to set up an small aquaponic system.

For my mini-ponics system I used:

3 gallon aquarium

Standard aquarium power filter (doesn’t need an air pump)

Styrofoam (the kind they use for takeout trays)

Net pots from a hydroponic or pond supply house

Old panty hose

Vermiculite

Seamagic seaweed emulsion

Aquarium test kit

Tools used:

razor knife, pencil, circle template

I trimmed the foam to fit the top of my aquarium, then I cut out the area for the filter to sit. Check this carefully: I forgot to check this and had to trim two holes I thought I could use once I put the filter in place.

Then I measured the pot my circle template and used my pencil to trace the correct size circle onto my foam lid.  You want the circle to be slightly smaller than the top of your pots.  Cut out the foam with your razor knife. 

The holes in my net pots were too large for my vermiculite, so I used panty hose.  Tie a knot in the end and pull the knot through the bottom of the pot.  This creates a wick while holding all the vermiculite in place.

Next, place the filter, then place the foam lid on top.  Fill the pots and place those in the holes in the lid, fill the aquarium with water, plug in the filter (don’t forget to add water inside the filter to help start the siphon) and place your seedlings in the pots…voila…now we feed and wait for the bacteria:

Carefully add a small amount of pure ammonia and a nice dose of seaweed emulsion (for the plants). The picture above shows my system after two weeks.

Next time we talk about aquaponics, I’ll walk you through the nitrogen cycle, the next step in setting up an aquaponic system.  For the next 6-8 weeks, we test the ammonia levels with our test kit, daily.  We also test for nitrites.  Once nitreates start to appear in our tests, we will also test for nitrates.  Add the seaweed emulsion every other day using half a capful or so to keep the plants going until the nitrogen cycle is complete.  If your ammonia levels fall, you will want to carefully add a bit more of that too until the nitrites appear. 

Things to do in your garden this week:  Prune roses, fertlize winter blooming bulbs, start harvesting asparagus and start your summer seedlings indoors and check out the latest Carolina Gardener magazine for my article on growing Salad in the South!

Also, I plan to teach a gardening class at My Favorite Things shop in Irmo this spring.  I'm giving away a free pack of zinnia seeds (one of my favorites) for the best idea for that class.   Post a comment here or on my facebook page: Sharon Self Johnson this week.

Don’t you wish you could just stick a seed in the ground, any seed, and it would sprout and grow?  I knew a woman like that…my grandmother.  She grew roses and tomatoes in whiskey barrels and grew fruit trees from the grocery store produce seeds by sticking the seeds in houseplant pots WITH the houseplants.  I had a client once who called this method of dream planting “stick planting”.  She would buy things and just stick them in the ground and hoped they grew. My grandmother stuck seeds in her pots and knew they would grow and grow they did.

Well I participated in a little stick planting of my own this past summer at the height of cherry season, you know…when they were on sale in the supermarkets.  I tucked a few seeds into my office plant and voila…here in January I noticed some funny looking weeds growing in my container…surely they are cherry trees in the making. 

Of course, they need to be repotted.  So this beautiful weather prompted a repotting session for the cherry trees.  I carefully removed them from the pots with my handy dandy bonsai tools (a great buy from ebay!)

Fascinating to see the seedlings still sporting their cotyledon, which feeds the seedlings until they get their first root (the radical) and stem (the hypocotyl) going.  

Once they cherry trees were at home in their new pot (complete with a good dose of worm castings), I pruned the other plants and placed them back in their pots, who knows what fun babies they might nurse this next growing season!

This week I promised you we would talk about aquaponics.  So today, let's discuss types of aquaponic systems:

The first type of system, the Nutrient Film system, is adopted from the hydroponics community.  In large commercial systems, water and nutrients are constantly pumped through PVC tubes.  Plants rest in holes drilled along the top of the PVC tubes.  This system requires a separate filtration tank to remove fish solids from the water before the water reaches the growing plant roots.   If the solids are not removed,  they begin to build up on plant roots, blocking nutrient absorption.  Separation and treatment of these solids requires space, time and energy.

Another system called the deep water raft system is also very similar to standard hydroponics grow systems.  In this system, however, plants are set in netted pots (like the ones you buy for your garden ponds) on a foam raft which floats over a water tank.  This system can be built at home over an existing aquarium, provided the fish are more carnivorous than herbivorous.  Goldfish love plants, so I’m thinking tiger barbs, catfish, cyclids and maybe some of the tetras and gouramis would be nice for this project.  Maybe you could just add your extra minnows from your latest crappie fishing jaunt.  You should also add an extra air pump and air stone to provide the plants with more oxygen.  This is the system I will attempt to build in my 3 gallon aquarium.  I plan to use it to start seedlings for my larger aquaponic system. 

My larger system will be a basic flood and drain system, specifically the Chop II system by Murray Hallam of Practical Aquaponics in Australia.  This is the third type of aquaponic system.  If you’ve grow sprouts, you’ve done a flood and drain system in its simplest form.  In this system, Unlike the previous two systems, plant beds are filled with growing media instead of water only.  The growing media acts as a biological filter, which is basically a place for bacteria to grow.  This bacteria is going to break down the fish waste (ammonia) into nitrites. Then another, slower growing bacteria converts the nitrites down into nitrates…and guess what? Nitrate is a form of nitrogen plants can use.  Because this process takes place in the grow beds, no extra filtration is needed.  ¾” gravel or hollow clay beads called hydroton fill the grow beds.  Other materials can be used but they may alter the chemistry of the water and cause pH problems later on. Flood and drain systems can grow a wider variety of plants because the roots are exposed to more oxygen.  Water flows into the grow beds, reaches a set level, then flows back out again.  There are many different version of how to get the water from tank to tank and back again and many more will be developed as this potentially world altering food technology evolves.

Here’s where my systems sit:

This week I ordered two more 50 gallon stock tanks and bought another 300 liters of hydroton. I also ordered all my garden seeds for the season and started bok choy, onions, spinach and lettuce seed in my biodome.  Spinach and bok choy are already sprouting inside, daffodils and forsythia are starting to bloom outside.  What’s happening in your gardening world?