Professional Documents
Culture Documents
by Meg Stout
Contents
Part 1: Creating Your System ................................................. 1
1 What Is Your Vision? ....................................................3
What Is an Aquaponic Garden? .................................................... 3 Creating Your Plan......................................................................... 4 Your Long-Term Goals ................................................................ 5 Strengths and Limitations ........................................................... 5 Inside or Out? .............................................................................. 6 DIY or Kit? ................................................................................. 7 Plants and Fish ............................................................................ 8 Sample Home Systems ................................................................... 9 Creating an Aquaponic Window Garden ..................................... 9 Using a Water Pump in the Fish Tank ...................................... 10 Using a Sump to Keep Your Fish Safe ........................................ 11 Sample Micro-Farms.................................................................... 12
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Temperature and Water ............................................................... 28 Thermal Mass ........................................................................... 28 Water Evaporates When Air Is Warm ...................................... 29 Water Condenses on Cool Surfaces ............................................. 30 Dissolved Oxygen ....................................................................... 30 Fish Need Water to Live ............................................................. 31 Plants and Water .......................................................................... 32
Contents
Water Pumps ................................................................................ 60 Capacity and Head..................................................................... 61 Filters ........................................................................................ 61 Filling Up Your Fish Tank .......................................................... 62 Fill Up with a Hose.................................................................... 62 Use a Water Cooler Design ........................................................ 63 Use a Float Valve to Add Water ................................................. 64 Solids Lifting Overflow in Fish Tanks ....................................... 65 The Soda Straw ......................................................................... 65 The Bottom Drain Standpipe ..................................................... 65 The Side Drain Standpipe ......................................................... 66 DIY Plans for Standpipes and Overflows ................................... 66 PVC Media Guard .................................................................... 67 Inexpensive Bulkhead Fitting ..................................................... 67 PVC Standpipe and Drain ......................................................... 68 Solids Lifting Overflow for Drain in Bottom of Fish Tank ........ 69 Solids Lifting Overflow for Drain in Side of Fish Tank ............. 70
Part 2:
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Growing in Water........................................................111
Benefits and Challenges of Growing in Water..........................111 Filtering Out Fish Solids ......................................................... 112 Net Pots and Media ................................................................. 112 Aeration................................................................................... 113 Nutrient Film Technique........................................................... 113 Containers for Nutrient Film Technique .................................. 113 Temperature .............................................................................114 Plants Floating in Deep Water ...................................................114 Floating Rafts ...........................................................................115 Arranging Your Plants .............................................................116 What Grows Beneath ...............................................................117
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Other Hydroponic Growing Methods.......................................117 Ways to Filter Your Water..........................................................117 Let Gravity Remove the Solids ..................................................118 Screen Solids Out of the Water .................................................118 Use High-Tech Filters .............................................................. 119 DIY Plans for Growing in Water ...............................................119 NFT Tube Made from a Fence Post ......................................... 119 Swirl Filter .............................................................................. 121
Part 3:
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Cool-Weather Plants .................................................................. 144 Beets ........................................................................................ 144 Carrots .................................................................................... 145 Leafy Greens ........................................................................... 146 Cold-Weather Plants .................................................................. 147 Cabbage and Other Brassicas.................................................... 147 Peas ......................................................................................... 147 Mche ...................................................................................... 148 Spinach .................................................................................... 148 Beyond Garden Vegetables ........................................................ 149 Herbs ....................................................................................... 149 Trees ........................................................................................ 149 Flowers .................................................................................... 149 Duckweed ................................................................................ 150 Extending Aquaponics to Plants in Soil ................................... 150 Wicking Beds ........................................................................... 150 Smartscaping with Aquaponics Water ...................................... 152
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Good Bugs .................................................................................. 167 Ladybugs.................................................................................. 167 Lacewings ................................................................................ 167 Praying Mantises ..................................................................... 168 When in Doubt........................................................................ 168 Pest-Deterring Plants ................................................................. 168 Marigolds ................................................................................ 169 Garlic ...................................................................................... 169 Peppermint .............................................................................. 169 Lavender ................................................................................. 170 Sprays and Powders .................................................................... 170 A Squirt of Water.................................................................... 170 Garlic Fire Spray ..................................................................... 170 Molasses Spray ......................................................................... 171 Diatomaceous Earth ................................................................ 171 Teas ............................................................................................. 172 Chamomile Tea ........................................................................ 172 Compost Tea ............................................................................ 172 Beer ............................................................................................. 173 Controlling Mosquitoes ............................................................. 173 Bacillus Thuringiensis ............................................................. 173 Neem Oil ................................................................................. 173 Bug Zappers ............................................................................ 174
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Shellfish ....................................................................................... 207 Scuds or Gammarus ................................................................ 207 Freshwater Shrimp and Crayfish ............................................. 208
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Part 5:
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Row Covers .............................................................................. 233 EMT Hoop Houses .................................................................. 234 Construction Considerations .................................................... 235 Foundation .............................................................................. 235 Forming Hoops ........................................................................ 236 DIY PVC Hoop House .............................................................. 236
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Integrated Agriculture for Communities of Choice ................ 286 Building a Geodesic Dome ....................................................... 286 Integrating Automation ........................................................... 286 Adding Other Animals ............................................................ 287 Harvesting Energy .................................................................. 287 Integrating Air, Water, and Soil Gardening ............................ 287 Encouraging Community Celebrations ..................................... 288 Adding Agriculture to Technology Education......................... 288 International Aquaponics in Yokohama .................................... 288 Aquaponics in a High School Honors Program ......................... 289 HOT STEAM Drives You MAD ........................................ 289
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Appendixes
A B Glossary ..................................................................... 303 Resources ................................................................... 315 Index ........................................................................... 323
Introduction
An aquaponic garden allows a gardener to avoid chemical fertilizers by using fish to provide nutrients for the plants. The plants grow in a soil-free environment, and the roots clean the water for the fish. Together, the fish and plants work together so the water can be recycled indefinitely. You only need to replace water that has evaporated, reducing your water bill. Aquaponic gardens produce food naturally with much less water than a conventional garden. Aquaponics is becoming popular among people concerned about nutrition, avoiding artificial additives, and protecting the environment. You can create an aquaponic garden almost anywhere you can bring together light and space using a footprint as small as a single square foot. And aquaponics is easy. Once youve created your system, you wont need to water or weed it, or even bend over. You will be able to grow more plants in less space than in a traditional garden, and your plants will grow faster and larger.
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Do It Yourselfor Not
In this book youll see a lot of DIY plans, but you can always decide that your time is worth more than the additional cost to buy a pre-made system. As aquaponics becomes more popular, I expect it will become possible to buy more and more components locally without having to pay for shipping. In the meantime, this book gives you enough information to create a system in a weekend using materials from local hardware and pet supply stores, if you want to.
Introduction
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Part 4, Fish and Other Animals, talks about the fish you might want to consider raising in your garden and how to take care of them. This section covers how to catch, prepare, and cook edible fish. Finally, there are details on animals other than fish you might want to add to your garden ecosystem. Part 5, Beyond the Basics, covers topics you might want to consider if you to take your garden outside or extend your growing season. This section also talks about how to automate your garden and eliminate dependence on municipal water and electricity. This section covers maintenance as well as integrating aquaponics into schools or communities, and includes a DIY section with plans for making a variety of the components mentioned in the book. I also include two appendixes to help further your understanding of aquaponic gardening: a glossary of terms and a list of books, websites, and other resources.
Extras
Throughout the book you will find four different types of sidebars that provide tips, cautions, definitions, and other miscellaneous information to enhance your understanding of aquaponics. Look for these boxes:
GREEN TIP Check these boxes for tips to help make your garden grow better or reduce the number of resources you need to devote to your garden.
SOUNDS FISHY The information in these boxes clarifies misconceptions and cautions you against making costly or potentially dangerous mistakes.
DEFINITION These boxes define terms used in aquaponic gardening that you might not be familiar with.
DID YOU KNOW Check these boxes for interesting tidbits that relate to aquaponic gardening.
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Acknowledgments
I am forever grateful for the generosity of the gardeners who have shared their knowledge with me, either in presentations, videos, books, forums, or formal research. I am particularly grateful to those whose examples and photos are contained in the book. They have been overwhelmingly generous in sharing their wisdom so you can better understand this amazing technology. I am also grateful for Marilyn Allen, who asked me to write this book, as well as Tom Stevens, Lynn Northrup, and the rest of the folks at Alpha Books who worked to transform my arcane text into understandable prose. Finally, I must acknowledge the love, kindness, and patience my husband and daughters showed me throughout this process.
Trademarks
All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be or are suspected of being trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Alpha Books and Penguin Group (USA) Inc. cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
Part
In this first part of the book, we cover a variety of things you will want to think about as you plan your aquaponic garden. The first chapter explores what you want in an aquaponic garden. Do you want a garden inside your home our outside? Do you want to buy a pre-made kit, or do you want to build it yourself? Chapter 2 helps you ensure your plants get enough of the right kind of light. Chapter 3 explains how to make water work for you on both a physical and chemical level. Chapter 4 covers various options for fish tanks. This chapter also discusses what to use for grow bedsand even includes instructions on how to make your own grow beds if youre handy with tools. Chapter 5 shows you how to plumb your system so you can pump water between your fish tank and grow beds properly.
Chapter
In This Chapter