I’ve decided to put my aquaponics project on hold for a little while. My biggest hurdle has been finding a suitable grow bed to match up with a 20 gallon aquarium tank. I tried a few different storage totes but none of them worked out. It’s too hard to get a good seal for the siphon and drain that has to go on the bottom because the plastic is so flimsy. I need to find or build something that’s a lot more sturdy. The hydroponics grow beds that I looked at were too shallow for an aquaponics system to work properly. Everything that I’ve read so far says that the grow bed needs to be 12 inches deep.
I haven’t given up. I’m just going to set up an actual aquarium for now. I need to learn how to keep small fish alive under normal circumstances before I go crazy and try to do it on a large scale using unconventional methods. A lot of the principles that go into setting up an aquarium are used in an aquaponics setup, anyway. The nitrogen cycle is the core of an aquaponics system and you have to get it under control in a normal aquarium, anyway. I’ll just use the water from my water changes to water my plants. We’ll see how it goes.
Hopefully, within a few months I’ll have a good sized indoor system going. I need to build a greenhouse that I can keep warm in the winter before I try to build something outside. I’m not sure if my patio slab will be able to hold a ~200 gallon tank plus a grow bed, anyway. That’s the only good place in my backyard where I have room to make it work. We’ll see how it goes.