Aquaponics ( Fish, crayfish, snails )

60 gall with pleco and snails + crystals ( amethyst )

My journey through aquaponics has been filled with rises and falls, achievements and disasters, mini epiphanies, idiocies and everything in between. These systems have evolved over time and now incorporate natural elements for healing plants and its environment. Rockdust has been added to the growbeds, we have also added red wigglers to the systems giving them more of a vermiponics like setting. ( vermiponics- worms in the aquaponics system )

Guppies in aquaponics + quartz in aquaponics

Our 40 gallon tank holds only a few fish, their not for eating, more so for fertilizer, studying and tank cleaning. We added quartz crystal and amethyst to experiment with certain energies in the water and fish health, results were very interesting to say the least. ( The results were a little skewed as one tank had sand and the other had stone, we will be conducting new research into this at the new location)

In this tank there is a pleco, 2 guppies and a few apple snails, there are some natural grasses floating on top, as well as a moss ball. The fish are fed an organic food that we created since we could not find anything organic on the market, because lets be blunt here, if your feeding your fish crap, your whole system is crap.

Pleco in aquaponics

Tilapia in aquaponics

Sadly, this was the best shot I could get.....

There putting on weight now, and this was the smallest one so were doing good. I had to move her/him to its own tank as the other fish kept picking on him/her.  

The funny thing is, since I purchased these fish I've discovered the benefits of the 80/10/10 diet. This means these little guys will no longer be dinner, its good anyway, I didn't want to kill them and didn't know where to get it done, so all worked out well.

amethyst (fluorite ) in aquaponics- I thought it was amethyst, smart.... real smart *smacks self in head*. Do yourself a favour, don't put fluorite in aquaponics.

side of aquaponics system with guppies and pleco.

Here you can see the side of the aquaponics unit, I find it very valuable to keep a check list ( some type of chalk or marker board ) close by, there's always something that needs writing down, its better then sticky notes I find and will save you a world of frustration. We have also placed stones with positive sayings around the room in hopes of some subliminal effect, not only for people, but somehow the plants/environment as well, because if Dr Emoto's conscious water theory is even somewhat correct, then why should consciousness stop at water?, shouldn't plants hold there own state of consciousness?, the same to animals as well?. 

This idea could then carry on to claim the whole universe has a conscious, and what we must understand is that there might be a way to positively influence our surrounding by merely tapping into, or understanding a consciousness, and how it works. As silly as this might sound to some, it almost seems to work on the law of attraction. ( which I think in some strange way might almost act  like a magnet at times ( and could possibly be manipulated like it ),
but I digress.. more on this in another blog. ).

One of our tilapia tanks

60 gallon tilapia tank with bacopa and rosemary growing, growing media is hydroton. We have one air generator on the shelf just above as you can see with all the blue lines running around. I highly suggest going onto ebay and purchasing metal splitters for your air lines, I went to a hydroponic shop and aquarium stores and all they had were these plastic pieces of junk, broke within days of me using them. Now, my friend had some splitters made from brass so I knew what was out there, I just couldn't find it locally. So I went searching and of coarse the easiest, chaepest way...... ebay. There are a ton of cheap metal ones with simple cheap shipping so save yourself some time and money, only get the metal air splitters.

Ive used many draining devices for growbeds and most all of them have been a hassle or questionable. Ive used boat drains, store bought drain kits and even made PVC drains, none of which I was thoroughly happy with. I decided to go on a hunt and find out if there was something out there that I was missing and of course, I just needed to do a google picture search and BAM, there it was. It was one of those moments where all I had to do was look at it and I knew it would work. While this design could be made out of PVC, I'm no longer a fan of it after studying its chemical nature and am in the process of switching it all out. Below is the device made from food grade plastic, it has such great flow and I never need to worry about this thing clogging. Ive owned it for years now and have never had an issue. This can be used in so many hydroponic/aquaponic situations that I highly recommend it.

Mini Biofilter aquaponics

These pvc pieces act as mini biofilters, they contain cleaning scrubbies, rockdust, seashells and snail shells. From the picture you can see the algae growth along the side, but what happens here is that little tiny black snails live in this growbed and biofilter. They come out from time to time and clean off all the algae growth.

Pleco aquaponics

My yellow pleco, this is one tough fish. I experimented with a natural pesticide ( cedar oil ) and while it killed all my bad bugs, it made the good ones disappear too, not only that, killed everything in my tank except for the pleco, he had these super red eyes for months, felt like a jerk for that one.

Pleco in aquaponics

Self cloning Crayfish

A while back now we experimented with crayfish, it was an interesting time I'll give it that, they work really well... to well infact. If your tank isnt set up properly it will get out of control quickly, they produce off spring in the hundreds and from time to time attack one another and end up dead in the toughest places to get to. There is also the fact they are messy eaters, so if you skimp on your setup (ie. biofilters/pumps/design/) it will not work. We created an aquarium filled with 2 inch pvc pipe cut at about 4/5 inchs long. Sadly this was a while ago, way before the blog and I only took a pic of when she was pregnant.

Pregnant marbled crayfish

Crayfish in aquaponics

Crayfish aquaponics