Hello sustainable growers.
Jonathan from Melbourne Aquaponics.
In this video, we’ll comment on the little aquaponics setup of Karthik, one of my followers
who has done a really good job, I would say, at transforming a very small aquarium into
a real and very small aquaponics setup.
At one point, I had seven aquariums in my very small teenager’s room.
And it was a lot of things going on into this room.
The pumps were marking some noise and I couldn’t really sleep.
But I was very happy to have all those fish around me and the idea for me was to try recreate
the ecosystem that we had into the rivers but the reality is that in aquarium you don’t
recreate the whole ecosystem.
You just take a little portion, a little picture of the ecosystem.
And unfortunately, there is no real balance into the aquarium which means that any food
that you put into the aquarium at the end it’s going to create some ammonia and nitrates
and then nitrites and these nitrites are going to accumulate into the aquarium, into the
water.
And they’re going to increase with the time.
And therefore, in an aquarium, you need to renew the water every three weeks, one month,
two weeks, well depending on how you manage it, depending on the population you have and
the quantity of food you put into the system.
But basically, you still need to do some water changes.
And when you’ve got seven aquariums, it’s lot of water changes.
You have to do them quite frequently.
So depending on the size of the aquarium, it can be a big job or it can be very small.
But still it’s a certain quantity of workload.
So once I realized that it was really possible to make those kind of setups, I could decrease
the quantity of water change that I had to do into the aquariums.
And it was a real relief because as you know, the water change in an aquarium is a big job.
So if you have some big aquariums especially in fresh water, I will definitely recommend
you to turn them into an aquaponics setup because the fish tank by itself can stay the
same, can keep your fish.
Whatever the temperature is, it’s perfect.
Just add a growbed on top of it and you’re going to grow some food or some ornamental
plants, but you’re going to decrease the quantity of water changes that you will have
to make into your aquarium.
So it’s going to be a real, real relief for you.
So today, we got someone who has designed a really good setup and that’s what we’re
going to look at.
We’re going to see how he’d transformed a nice little aquarium into a real and small
aquaponics setup.
We’re going to see that obviously, it’s a first trial so there are things that we
put and improve.
And I’m going to give you my view on this setup.
I’m going to tell you what is good or what is bad from my point of view.
And please in the comment also, comment this setup and let him know exactly what you think
of the aquaponics setup but I think he deserves a lot of good comments because at least he
did something.
It started something.
And I think it’s great.
It looks good you know.
It could be better though, but it’s a good first step.
So the first thing I notice is that it’s a very small fish tank.
And well as you know and if you had the aquarium for a while, a little aquarium is very difficult
to balance.
Right?
I mean, when I say very difficult, I mean, you know, it’s difficult to have good bacteria
to treat all those peak of nitrate and ammonia that you’re going to create when you feed
your fish.
So if you over feed the fish it’s going to be a problem.
You don’t have this problem in a bigger scale aquarium.
You have less fluctuation.
So yeah, I think it’s really good to convert this aquarium, but I would have started with
an aquarium that was a little bit bigger.
But still you know, it’s good because at least he did something and it looks amazing.
If you have an aquarium and you still have to make all your water changes and you are
a bit bored of it, I offer you a free support to make your own aquaponics setup and to convert
your own aquarium into an aquaponics setup.
So download it from the description just here below.
So one of the points is that the growbed is quite high comparing to the height of the
fish tank.
So obviously, the pump needs to work to push the water up to the growbed and so it makes
a bit of effort that is maybe unnecessary.
Obviously, I understand you had the window at this area at this place, and for you it
was a kind of obvious.
You just have to put the little growbed on the window and there you have the lights.
So I totally understand why you did this this way and it works really well.
But just from an energy point of view you could have saved a bit of power if you reduced
the height of the growbed, if you put it in a position just a bit lower, just above the
fish tank.
The main point that I see, the main negative point is that I don’t see any bell siphon
or any water high fluctuation.
So maybe there is one explain us but here what I see is the constant flow level.
And a constant flow level aquaponics setup is going to work at the beginning, but after
a while, you’re going to have the bottom of the growbed that is going to turn anaerobic.
And once this bottom is anaerobic, which means without oxygen, you’re going to have some
fermentation so you are not going to have a good transformation of ammonia and nitrate
and nitrite because the aerobic bacteria are not going to be present.
But the other problem you’re going to have is that you are inside and it’s going to
smell very bad.
So see how it goes but what I would do I would modify the growbed to make sure that I will
put a timer on the pump, on the water pump and I will make sure that there is a water
fluctuation into the growbed.
So if you don’t know how to do that, there are two ways.
Right?
The first way is to work with a bell siphon, but for this type of little setup, it’s
going to be very difficult, very tricky to make a little bell siphon.
So I really recommend to use a timer to put your pump on a timer to make it work maybe
every 15 minutes or every 5 minutes.
It’s up to you.
I will make a special video about how to plug a timer pump on your aquaponics setup.
If you put your water pump on a timer, I will recommend to add a little air pump into your
fish tank.
One of the good points is that you’ve got very few fish so I think there is a really
good balance between the quantity of growbed you have and the quantity of fish biomass.
So I don’t think you’re going to have a problem of feeding your fish too much and
not being able to transform all the ammonia except if you don’t fix this problem of
constant water level which is going to turn your setup anaerobic, your growbed anaerobic
in a while.
This setup is built on a tropical aquarium that’s really good to have a high temperature.
Right?
Because for the bacteria, it’s amazing.
The bacteria are working way more, way faster, way better at high temperatures than at low
temperatures.
The only problem you’re going to have is that because it’s tropical fish, I imagine
you feed them with the fish food you find into the aquarium shop.
Most of the time, this kind of fish food contains some colorants and sometimes some medicines
or some different molecules.
So just check what are the ingredients because if you want to eat the lettuce, if you want
to eat whatever you produce from this growbed, I just want to make sure you are not going
to eat anything that could be harmful for you.
I understand that pet food is supposed to be safe for the fish, but what is safe for
a little fish is not necessarily safe for you.
Personally, I wouldn’t eat the pet food that they’re selling into the aquarium shop.
And I’m sure you wouldn’t.
And I’m not saying that when you have an aquaponics setup, you are eating the fish
food of your fish.
I’m just saying that be careful whatever chemicals can be into the fish food because
you may find them into the vegetables that you’re going to eat later on.
And finally, I would like to congratulate you because I think you chose a really good
media.
The clay balls are really well adapted for those types of very small setups.
You know that normally here we use scoria.
We use the volcanic rocks as media which has a very high surface area so which is perfect
for the bacteria.
But in a small aquaponics setup, as you have, the cost is not a problem because here if
we don’t use clay balls it’s mainly because of the cost.
Right?
It costs extremely.
It’s very expensive when you have this set up.
But in a small setup, such as the one you have, it’s not such a big investment.
So you have this kind of media.
It’s working really well.
It’s very efficient.
And it looks good so I think you made a really good choice.
I would have done the same, and when I design some very small setups and ornamental setups
I most of the time use clay balls, as well.
So that’s all the comments I have to give you.
While obviously, there are more things to say, but in this video, I think I already
gave you a few of them.
If you are watching this video and if you have some comments about this lovely aquaponics
setup, please give a comment below the video and let him know how he could improve it and
please give him some good comments because he needs to have some good encouragements
because he’s done a really, really good job.
So if you want to do the same kind of things or if you want to transform your aquarium
into an aquaponics setup, don’t forget that you can have access to a free guide to transform
your aquarium into an aquaponics setup, or to build a new aquaponics setup from scratch.
So just get it from the description of the video just below.
And I’ll see you in the next one.
Bye-bye.
Thank you so much for watching the video.
I really hope you enjoyed it.
Don’t forget to get your free gift from this screen.
You can also leave me a comment below the video.
Subscribe to the channel and see my last video.
I really hope to see you soon.
And I wish you a fantastic success with aquaponics.
Have a good crop!