Small Aquaponics Kit with Portable wicking bags.

Continuous-flow Aquaponics  Kit with wicking bags for individual plants. 

Plan with Actionable metrix where appropriate . 

[Grow Bed ] = [Table] = [Fish Tank]

[water] = [fish equipment] = [aquatic plants] = [filters]

Grow Bed

Size

The best suggestion is that the biological surface area is large enough for the fish tank. But a less scientific suggestion is that the grow bed media is twice the volume of the fish tank.  

 So knowing that water in fish-tank is never the shop-advertised size (in Liters),  The grow bed includes both stones at te bottom for  biological filtration, and dirt bags for growing. 

Shape strainers

Holes are drilled at the top lip of all tanks (grow bed and fish tank) parallel to each other hole. Then string or fishing rod thread is tied to the top of the tank, to stop the tank from buckling or twisting out of shape.

Drainage Apparatus

The Bottom of the grow bed is filled with rocks and water, at the top of the rocks lays the drainage pipe. (about 10cm from the bottom of the grow bed tub.)

The drainage pipe is filled with 130 holes 1cm apart along it's length. 

To drill the holes, I first tape the hose to a longer piece of wood, and that way it doesn't wobble around i am able to drill holes in a straight line. The holes need to be at the same level for design's sake. 

A hole is drilled on the side of the tank, and a pipe-connector seals the hole. (a two part screwable pipe connector).

The hole 's level together with the rocks, must allow the wicking-bags to sit 1 cm in water. 

Wicking Bags

The bags are standard Polythene horticultural bags used to house single trees. The bags are sized appropriately to fit 2 side-by-side in the grow bed.  To two sides of the squarish black bags, I stapled  two appropriately sized sections of bathroom towel material. 

Bathroom towels are best at 'anti-gravity osmosis' sucking water upwards against gravity. Better than 'tea-towel material' (anything that is plainly woven.) and way better than silky geotextiles.

Bathroom towels are designed to soak up the water from your body, so they work well to soak up water from the growbed and the soil turns a nice moistness. 

Swirl Filter Bucket

From the fishtank, the pump may throw up lots of gunk, and the gunk will sit in the growbed rocks. So a mechanical filter is a small bucket filled with clothes and stones, the water is pumped from the fishtank to the bottom of the filter, and empties out the top into the growbed.

A swirl filter is a more complicated.  

The Pump's pipe should be secured and not 'submerged.  If the pump's end-of pipe is submerged, a reverse siphon will occur when the pump stops, and the water will empty out of the grow bed. Not ideal in emergencies when you are away from the system... 

So the Pipe's end should be hanging in the air, and secured to the grow bed so it doesn't flop onto the ground and spill out. 

 I drill two small holes on the top lip , on the opposite side of the grow-bed tank away from where the drainage hole is , and i tie a piece of string around the pump's pipe and to the grow bed. 

This way the water will flow. 

In this grow bed, 14 plant bags can be fit there, but we can easily make it 13 plants and install a swirl bucket if the gunk is too much. 

Table

Table is simply a pine table with glued and nailed corners. It should be strong enough to keep standing when kicked on the corner. Instructions are found on the other page. 

Fish Tank

Size

For fresh-water crayfish , the minimum size is 30 L per individual adult. And the best suggestion for a minimum size of fish tanks is 200 L . So with a 200L tank, we can fit 6 koura. But Koura and Eels are predators and so we can try compartmentalize the fish tank for housing rescued creatures, but i would suggest a brand new aquaponics system for each new species or age fishes. 

Shape Strainers.

Again the biggest threat to the fish tank is buckling from being filled by water, the weight of the water twists the tank's plastic and the plastic will crack.

Simply drill some holes at the top lip of the fish tank, and tie some fishing line tightly to keep the shape. The tank will buckle along the widest length, so keep those two sides the same distance from each other will ensure no buckling. 2 strainers at the 1/3 and 2/3 positions along the longest length of the fish tank will suffice. 

Pump

Because the drainage system is not a bell siphon, the pump's strength is not vitally important. 

 New Pump initialization

When the pump arrives in the mail, and you test it, make sure to oil it  while it's running in air. Remove the grill plate , (the side where the hose outlet is.) 

remove the turbine cover. 

put some oil on a cotton bud, and apply the oil to the turbine's axis, as the pump is spinning in the sun. 

then put the turbine cover back on. 

add your fine mesh as additional filter

and finally put the last cover back on. 

To add the pipe to the pump, get the correct sized pipe, and soak it in hot boiling water for 15 seconds, then squeeze the pipe into the pump's outlet hole.  

pump stand

The pump will run continuously , especially during the day,  so the pump can't sit at the bottom of the tank, or else the tank may accidentally empty completely. 

In the case of accidents, we need to make sure that the pump is sitting at the height of desired minimum water level. 

I simply fill a  square bottle with stones and water, so it sinks, and sit the pump on top of that.

the fish tank will never drain lower than the pump. 

Pump Cage

I place the pump inside 'hatchery box', so that small creatures can't get stuck in the pump. 

There are smaller creatures, and strange slime blobs which could be eggs or slime-blobs, and 

there are smaller-holed meshings (butterfly nets) to filter the water which touches the pump.

Hopefully eggs which do find their way into the grow bed find some water at the bottom. A bell-siphon system might 'suffocate' a egg when the water dries out. 

Aquatic creatures

There are ambient creatures in the water, which we ignore, but don't kill. They are vital for a healthy system that will replicate the natural environment of the river or water. 

Production Species

For the species you want to grow, you will need to know what it eats in the wild, how much it will eat , if you want to add other creatures into the same tank, then you need to know who are predators. 

Then you need to know how much litres of water each individual needs, if the creature lives in fresh water. The months and years of the creature's life cycle. 

Weeds (plants)

Plants clean the water of the nutrients that fall from the dirt in the grow bed. 

 There are multiple native kinds of plants that live in the water which form huge mats. fish , crustaceans and other creatures eat the plants. mostly they are long branches  of thin leaves that replicate. 

There is also the duckweed which is foreign, and it is a single small leaf that floats on the top, with a step hanging down. People actually grow and harvest duckweed to feed their fish. I think they dried it out first then grind it and give it. 

Microbiota - Bacteria 

The bacteria are vitally necessary for aquaponics, so please dont use herbicides pesticides, don't use soap. 

Simply add a cup or two of water from the wild into your aquaponics tank.

When you want to top up the water, use rain water, because we don't know how poisonous the rivers next to humans are. 

Plankton  

The tiny creatures that make the water cloudy, are great for fish to eat. They are like tiny tiny invisible shrimps. 

Prawns and shrimps have 10 legs. 

Water

Use sea water if you want a marine/ocean system. 

Use rain water if the system is fresh water system. like pretending to be the rivers.
But on top of the rain water, when you are ready to put fish in the water, you must first "activate' the water.
o do that, you need to go to a creek, the bigger and more slow the creek the better. And bring 5L of water from the creek and put it in the fish-tank. and try to bring a lot of weeds too, because in the weeds will be the creatures. 

Inside that natural creek water, there are all the bacteria and plankton , along with the weeds and shrimps. 

Your country may have poisons in the rivers, so you should ask the scientists and university to tell you about the river water and the bacteria and creatures which live in your creek.