I’m not about to abandon Aquaponics for Hydro, but I thought it would be useful to know a thing or two about it with some hands-on experiments. I’ve been going through all of UpStart Farmers’ online courses and found it to be very informative. Although they focus more on Hydroponics, they also try to cover other grow methods like aeroponics, aquaponics, dutch buckets, and alike. To start with, I got myself a 5′ ZipGrow Tower from Bright Agrotech and built my DIY system based on this video. It took me roughly 3 days to finish the system. I reused my 30gal fish tank from my AP system last year as my nutrient reservoir.
This is all the materials I used:
- 5′ ZipGrow Tower 4-pack = $269.99
- Active Aqua Submersible pump, 400GPH = $25.16
- (4) Drip emitter, 2 GPH non pressure compensating = $.88
- (1) Perma-Loc tubing elbow, 1/2″ = $1.10
- (1) Perma-Loc tubing male threads adapter, 1/2″ = $.61
- (1) Perma-Loc tubing end cap, 1/2″ = $.75
- (1) Polyethylene tubing – 1/2″ (came in 50′) = $7.39
- (1) Polyethylene tubing – 1/4″ (came in 50′) = $4.15
- A bunch of 2×3 pine wood, zip ties and cabinet screws
Total cost was roughly $350 for the system. I have yet to figure out how much fertilizer is going to cost in the long run. I’m starting out with liquid fertilizers since I’m a total newbie, and then hopefully move onto mixing my own stock solution from dry fertilizers.
I don’t know much about how to run the system properly but I’ll give it a shot. What I want to learn eventually is how to deal with nutrient deficiencies and what the remedies are. This is the best way to learn about proper dosing without torturing any fish. Once I get the hang of things, I can then apply it to our AP farm in Manila.
