by danpowell
AquaponicsLite test system, monitoring energy consumption and food output
1:40 pm in Education, energy consumption, Getting Started, Nutrients, Projects in Process by danpowell
One year and 3 months ago I started fishkeeping as a Phase 1 of trying to do home Aquaponics, inspired by the work of the people that did the Ark project out of (I think) Rhode Island (can’t find it now).
Of course, I thought I was real smart, and the only one to do this.
Then I saw the Windowfarms thing, and found this community and was a little dejected I wasn’t as smrt as I thought.
Regardless, I got into fishkeeping in a fairly big way, and have a number of beautiful tanks I just love watching. I had totally forgotten about the aquaponics side of my plan until I heard about a science fair for adults (complete with category for best Volcano) coming in April. So I quickly geared up to prepare an experiment for Aquaponics. I’m just using the fish water for the hydroponic side, not looking to eat the fish, so I’m calling this AquaponicsLite. I’ve got almost all of my equipment and materials, tonight I’ll be getting the last of the wood to set up the plant stand, and then I’ll be good to go.
The experiment is monitoring electrical usage to see how cost/energy efficient the process is. I won’t be using sunlight because I’ll also be monitoring quality of growth given 3 variables.
- Control group of hydroponics, bagged to maintain humidity
- Hydroponics with CO2 supplementation
- Soil
- One unbagged to see effects of no humidity control.
So, I’ve gotten a few pictures, but I’ll get more once I’ve finished the set up and it’s all there in it’s magical glory. I’m posting this here to get things started.
BTW: running a fish tank with heater, 2 t5HO lights and 2 HOB filters for a week costs ~$1.50 at $0.0064/kwH.
Wouldn’t mind seeing some pics. Always curious to see how these systems are setup.
Wow, Dan. This is going to be an awesome experiment. You have found your peeps! We love to geek out on this stuff and by banding together to iterate through and test together, we are building a track record for legit innovation by the community for ourselves! Together, we are keeping this super valuable inforamtion for the future of food in the public domain so that it is not just a bunch of companies creating proprietary systems that are still black boxes to most folks. Anyway, welcome.
I’m not sure if you are saying that you are hooking this up to a windowfarm or not. If you are, the easiest way to get an aquaponic system hooked up to a windowfarm with the latest version 3.0 instructions, is to simply submerge the whole bottom bottle in your tank so the water that it is sucking in and pumping up to the top is coming from your tank. You can also just mod the plumbing components down there so they look like our education kits. which is basically the bottom bottle guts held rigidly in place without the bottle. If you are not talking about using a windowfarm for the plants themselves, please do get us some pictures of the hydro setup you are using so I can wrap my head around your project. You can add the images back in by editing the post and using the little sun shaped icon (or maybe its supposed to be a photo flash) at the top of the posting area. Good luck!
This is great! I wish I had more time to delve into the more rigid experimentation. I have long term plans of doing ‘heavy’ AquaPonics
once I have a space for a green house with a large pond inside, so I can’t wait to see an experiment involving AP so rigidly, plus your variables are all of the things that I am aiming to implement as soon as my plants are in place (CO2 + Humidity). I can’t wait to se what you come up with, and as Britta and HJ said, put up some pictures! We like visuals, especially with unique set-ups. Welcome to windowfarms! And if you run into any hiccups trouble shoot with us, it is what we are all about!
Yay this is exciting!
I have a question about your “soil” group. Does this mean that you are going to grow plants in a traditional soil and container setup or are you going to use soil in your window farm?
Also, what plants are you going to grow? I would imagine you are going to do them all the same for consistency.
I look forward to your updates! Hopefully you will do well at the science fair!!
Melissa
p.s. what is the science fair called? I wonder if there would be one in my area too?
Thanks for the interest! I feel like a science king.
This was a big weekend. I’ve got the stand ready and drilled (except for air holes), and it’s going to slide right on top of the sump aquarium. The electrical is set up and a) all lights turn on, b) don’t draw much current, even though they’re in parallel (0.72 amps) and c) haven’t caused a fire in all five minutes I had them turned on.
I’ve taken some pictures, which I’ll post once I’ve got the columns up and filled. I’ve had seeds germinating for … too long now. This really has to get planted this week.
I’m killing the soil-only group, and replacing it with a ‘commercial fertilizer mix’. I feel better about this, because it’s using the same system, the water quantities will be the same… All sorts of good things.
Thanks Again!
Dan
Also, 4 100w(23w CFL) lights in a space 4′x2′ is super bright! I feel pretty good about wiring something successfully.
Oh! And cost of fish tank works out to $2.50 for 2 weeks. Manitoba has cheap electricity!
@BionicMel = Fairly Scientific: A Community Event for the Sci-Curious
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=116420371759136