Today, we are going to visit Matt, who built his own aquaponics system based on the nutrient
film technique system.
I live in Leavenworth, Washington.
I'm here with my dog Fria, and we're here to talk about my aquaponics setup.
Why I did aquaponics is I'm into gardening a lot.
I like fish tanks, and I saw the idea and I thought it'd be a good idea to give it a
try.
So here we go.
I got four 4-inch x 54-inch long tubes here with 8 holes in each one there for your plants,
so 32 plants at a time.
I have a 660-gallon per hour pump in there.
I have a 20-gallon air stone that I use for aeration.
I have a heater rated for another 20-gallon tank.
The fish tank or the reservoir is 27 gallons from there, and there it's going to go up
this tube into my swirl filter which empty right here fish waste.
From there the good water is going to come out of the top down all the PVC tubes and
back into the fish tank, gravity-fed.
Right now, I have no fish in there.
I'm cycling my system.
I'm at two weeks so my ammonia levels are still pretty high.
My nitrites haven't appeared yet so my nitrates aren't there.
These plants are just kind of because I couldn't wait to put something in there.
Other than that, we used recycled material from projects around the house.
We got some steel plumber’s tape, just some deck screws and the rest was vision.
And we do not have a media bed because we plan on moving this inside where we live there
in the winter.
We wanted something that we can move around because we get snow.
We'll have snow up to here in the winter.
Other than that, that's about it.
Thanks for checking it out, and I hope you guys appreciate it.
So first, Matt, let me tell you the setup is looking really nice.
I think it's quite cute.
It's small scale but it looks really nice.
You used some wood to work on the aesthetic of the system so I really like it.
Obviously, you used some pipes so we can see the pipes.
They don’t look the best and there is a possibility to use bamboo.
The problem of bamboo is that it's never really waterproof.
With time, it leaks.
So you have to change it often, and it becomes a bit tricky.
So I understand why you used PVC pipes.
It makes sense.
You can maybe cover them with a special cloth to make them more aligned with the design
of the system, with the wood, but otherwise, yes, really, really good aesthetic.
And once the plants grow on it, it's going to look really green and it's going to cover
a bit of the pipe.
So and I'm sure the fish underneath are going to appreciate also to have this type of shed
from the green.
You may have some insects falling directly into the tank.
So I think it's a really interesting design that you made, and yeah, congratulations,
really.
The downside I think, it would be interesting to have a grow bed in the system.
So normally, in a large-scale NFT system, so when we say NFT is because it's nutrient
film technique because there is just a film of water that is going into the pipe, and
when it's a big scale, you got all the roots of the plants that are in contact with this
film of water and you got a lot of bacteria that are growing on the surface of those roots.
So basically, the roots are acting as media for the bacteria to live on.
You need to make sure you always have some plants in the system so you always got enough
bacteria to make the transformation of the ammonia into nitrite and nitrate for the health
of the fish.
Unfortunately, in a small-scale system such yours, if you don't have plants, you can't
really have a big population of bacteria which means that you're going to be very limited
in the quantity of fish you have.
Later on, when you got a lot of plants, you may have a certain surface area for your bacteria
which can be good, but when you harvest the plants or if the plants die, you get all the
bacteria that are removed at once.
That's why I really recommend to associate this technique with a classic grow bed aquaponics
because in a grow bed, we always have the media that is there that is present, and that
is always a good source of surface for the bacteria to live in.
So you always got your bacteria in the system in this case, and if you have the bacteria
in the system, you always got a good biological filtration for your fish.
So that's why I think the system you designed looks good, but you will not be able to manage,
I mean to stock many fish.
If you put a lot of fish, you need to make sure you got enough roots of plants for basically
offering a good surface area for the bacteria.
So if you can do, what I would really suggest is to add a little grow bed aside and basically
linking the grow bed with the whole system so that all the water goes through the grow
bed and obviously, you got a lot of bacteria that are going to be present and do the filtration,
biological filtration, so transformation of the ammonia into nitrite and nitrate to purify
the water.
Otherwise, really again, congratulations.
It’s a very good system.
It looks amazing.
I understand you want to put it inside during winter because if I understand well, you're
going to have a lot of snow where you live.
It's really cold.
So yeah, again, it can be good but just make sure you're going to offer a good lighting
system.
If there is not enough light, the plants may not grow well.
So you need to make sure you're going to offer them enough light.
So Matt, I suggest you should have a look at the free training on the description of
the video.
It's going to give you a lot of information to design your grow bed and to make sure it's
at a good dimension compared to the size of your fish tank.
It's available in the description of the video and in the “i” like information on the
corner of the video.
You guys, if you have any question for Matt, or if you are inspired or if you have any
comments, please let us know in the comment section of this video just below what is your
feedback.
And Matt, if you want to add any specific information to this video you are really welcome
in the description of the video.
Thank you very much.
See you in the next one.
Bye-bye.