Sunday 19 February 2017

Trying out aquaponics/hydroponics - prototype 2

The plants in the aquaponics trough (we shall call it prototype 1 from now on), have done pretty well and the set up has attracted quite a bit of attention from the guys on the chilli forum. Lots of people like the idea of having fish in a tank feeding plants above. I have been making various designs to try out ideas.

The first design I thought about was the most simple just a lid with holes cut so pots sat just above the water and the plants roots hung down into the tank. I did not try this idea further because i think this would be unsightly.

The second design here, is like prototype 1 accept with mist maker instead of the air-stones. I would like to try utilizing a mist maker but am waiting for one I ordered to arrive.

The third design here utilizes individual drippers for each pot. I based this design on miracle-grow's aerogarden, accept rather than a plastic reservoir I could use an aquarium. this is the design i will try further and make a prototype.

I started by cutting wholes for net pots in two poly-lids. one with holes big enough to take the top of the net pot, and one big enough for the bottom half of the net pot to go through but not the top. I pushed 8 net pots through the larger wholes so there top was pretty much flush with the poly-lid(I know badly explained but you will see what I mean in the pictures),

I then gave each net pot its own airline tubing feed and taped them to the underside of the first lid.


I then added the other poly-lid, sandwiching all the pipework in-between. I found an eight way airline splitter on eBay which I used to split the water coming from the pump (or aquarium filter in this case because I had one kicking round) into the eight airline feeds going to each net pot.


This all made, I placed the lid on a plastic reservoir to test I may install it on top of one of my aquariums later, but I wanted to try this version using fertilizer to try out true hydroponic growth for the first time. I got some rockwall cubes to put into the net pots. I have installed some peppers I got as plugs from the garden centre just to try it out. I also bought a propagator lid to go on top to keep up humidity when plant first go in and if i want to start some seeds in it.



Since its been running I think it doesn't need the lower poly-lid as i don't think it really adds anything, just covers the pipework which is not on show anyway. So far I have not got it its own light yet, Its just using a make shift but the plants look to be settling in well.

That's all for now but I will be trying more designs and updating the progress with this one. I also have lots more updates for the blog, I have been very busy with work stuff recently but I am back on the case. I have started to plant all my annuum and I have updates on many of my other plants.

I will leave you with photos of my current favourite wild peppers.

 Capsicum lanceolatum/Capsicum eximium

Happy growing!
edit. Forgot a couple of the photos.