Monthly Archives: November 2010

Aquaponics Fish Tank and Pumps

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I’m building an aquaponics system following the instructions in the ebook called Ultimate Aquaponics Home System. The book recommends a 379 liter (100 gallon) tank for fish and half the size for plants. My girlfriend found an aquarium capable of holding 325 liters (86 gallon) which we bought, valued at 387 USD. Neon tubes and timer electronics were included:

Plus a box of other stuff for keeping aquarium fish:

We still need a tank for the plants but most likely I’ll build it myself, because of the special shape. The plant tank only needs half the depth of the fish tank.

I’ve begun searching for a pump to exchange the water between the fish tank and the plant tank. The ebook recommends a MD5 Danner Supreme Magnetic Drive Pump, but the company is located in USA, and I’m in Europe, so I’m taking a look at pumps available locally.

Pump specifications should be “~6 gpm capacity across ~5‐7 feet of head”. A performance curve for the MD5 pump is shown in the chart below:

The chart shows that when you try to pump the water up to a certain height (HEAD), then at some point you’ll get zero gallons per minute throughput (GPM). Looking at the MD5 curve you’ll find the coordinates mentioned above, x = 6 GPM and y = 5 feet. Converting to standard units it is 23 liters per minute at 1.5 meters.

I have used these numbers as a guideline when looking at locally distributed pumps. I have found one that looks like it’s from China and it doesn’t look as sturdy as the MD5:

I don’t know about the quality of the HX 6520 pump shown above, but at least I’ll try asking the dealer in the US about MD5 pumps in Europe. The HX 6520 is valued at 67 USD.

As the Snow Settles

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Wow. This has been quite a trip. I’ve finally settled down in this new place 50 km south of the old house. Unfortunately it turns out that the new landlord don’t want me digging up his lawn, but it’s understandable since this is a temporary contract that will last until the summer of 2011.

The good thing about this new place is that there’s a relatively big terrace where I can put several containers, and the house has a long south facing wall, which is perfect for tomatoes, cucumbers etc. On top of that, the house might out in the middle of nowhere, but it’s big. Plenty of room for a sweet aquaponics system. My girlfriend is into aquarium fish so I’m excited to find out  what the two of us can come up with combining fish and plants in one system. Check out my review if you want a primer on aquaponics.

The cat moved with us too and we brought the chicken coop too. We dumped the coop on the terrace but the coop is empty for now as it was before. I don’t think the landlord would appreciate a large chicken run on his lawn ;-) But again, we’ll be moving in half a year anyway, hopefully to a place with some land of our own.

Not having my own land is irritating but I guess it’s the reality for a lot of people as super-farms are developing. If you still want to grow your own food it seems to me that aquaponics is a brilliant answer to this challenge but time will tell if I’m able to get it up and running. As far as self-sufficiency I think you would need you own plot anyway although the efficiency of an aquaponics system supposedly is very high, so I think self-sufficiency is a bit into the future for me, but it sure would be a cool thing to reach. Freedom, independence and power to the people! :-D

I still have some unpacking to do so I’ll leave you for now. I just wanted to let you know that I still want to grow my own food – how about you?