.My Aquaponics System Layouts.

A few years ago, my ex and I got a fish.

The idea of changing the fish filter every two weeks, for 15 some odd bucks a pop really didn't appeal to me.

Spent a few days thinking; then remembered a friend of mine in the city use to keep bamboo in the tank with his fish... And I had been thinking a lot about mimicking nature with designs; which had me thinking about plants around a pond or lake, and how they must interact some how together.

A short Google search later I was reading about Aquaponics, the art of keeping fish in a tank, and plants above or in the tank to clean the water of the fish waste.

The fish produce plant food, the plants produce clean healthy water for the fish.

This process works so well that my fish (R.I.P. all of you.) used to get very excited when the flow was turned on, and would physically become more active and playful.

I have learned to reduce the scale, using sub-aquatic black mystery snails; so as to not even require fish.

The snails do not eat living plant matter, and are easy to feed; I also feed them algae pucks from time to time; and they enjoy sticks also; making them very cheap to keep; they breed their population levels to correspond with their food levels; and you can generate an unlimited amount of them from a single snail who can breed with itself.

.Snail Army.

I have two styles of systems running in my apartment; one is electric free; which I developed through trial and error, and reading a lot; and the other is the traditional aquaponics set up with an electric pump.

 The traditional set up; with a pump, a grow bed, and an aquarium; the stainless steel bowl acts as a splash guard/catchment sort of thing, and has holes popped in it's side and bottom for draining; the drop of the water into the tank also generates more oxygen in the environment, which is good for both the aquatic animals and the plants.

 This is a simple, half broken pump I salvaged from the garbage, and it works fine for getting the water up to the grow bed.

Using a potable water tube, and a O Ring clamp to attach it to the pumps little nozzle thing; it runs up to the grow bed, into the back, where it distributes through the roots, and out the drain nozzle back into the tank.

The water catchment keeps splashing down, puts the water into a circular motion (Superstition or science? Ask Viktor Schauberger... Then it drops into the main tank, oxygenating along the way.

 This is the pumpless system I worked out; it's one large bucket, with lava rocks for a base; filled with a couple three or four inches of water, deep.

The smaller bucket is the grow bed, filled with soil; with a layer of lava rocks below the soil at the bottom; and several, as need be; holes drilled in the bottom, so that the soil can wick the water up.

The water level here is about 10 mm deep right now; as it's towards the end of a cycle; I simply fill up a 1 liter jug a few times and the water level is restored for another couple weeks.