Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:15 pm Post subject: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
Hey, here is a video on my indoor aquaponic gardening set up. It is a bit early in its testing, but I think it is going to change the way I garden forever!
Check it out, leave a comment, share it with friends. I hope you like it.
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
Cool!
I’ve seen pictures of setups like this before (a very large one in Switzerland with a retractible roof to take advantage of sun light). They called it organoponics but it wasn’t for vegetables. I guess it doesn’t matter what you’re growing, the plants are very happy in that type of environment.
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 3740 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 4:06 am Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
2 questions. What is your electricity bill and what do you feed the fish? For something to be sustainable you have to calculate all the inputs. It seems like for the amount of effort involved it would be better to grow outdoors using sunlight.
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:32 am Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
Regarding: "Sustainable Living", this looks like a fun episode
for your show but I hope this doesn't change the way you garden.
mos6507 wrote:
What is your electricity bill and what do you feed the
fish? For something to be sustainable you have to calculate all the
inputs.
* Electric pumps
* Electric lights
* Steel racks
* Grow lights
None of that sounds very sustainable or worth scaling up.
Do you think the cost of this equipment is less then the cost of
the regular farm/grocery store system? Or an outdoor garden?
To me sustainable is...
Permaculture farming
Agrichar
Mulch heated winter boxes
Sun/white reflector heated winter boxes
Mirror heated greenhouses
Solar hot air heated greenhouse
Stuff like that...
Gardengirl, what you did was make a nice indoor garden, great for
the winter blues, but it's not something sustainable. This looks like
a great system for growing Marijuana or getting garden seedlings started... It's also perfect example of fuel being turned into food.
It's an idea that is being looked into by many countries, but
leaves a bad taste in my mouth. You'll definitely get some clicks from
Marijuana growers and indoor gardeners, but I don't think it's
anything sustainable...
Anyway, here are a few links for people who are interested in farming in buildings...
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:41 pm Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
Stepping this system up to being completely sustainable is very easy, I just haven't done it yet, but I will as part of my Alternative energy research. Since it is maybe all told 200 watts, it should be very easy, to put a solar cell and a deep cycle battery together and then no grid energy used. (maybe it will cost $300)
In terms of inputs for the fish, no problem either. A simple indoor vermiculture(worm bin) would be easy, and then the fish would eat the worms that in turn breed from eating my families waste. This system is designed for urban folks and gardeners, not for pot.
Steam Cannon, I'm sure you can see how it easy it is to make a system like this one work completely sustainably. And yes I will be using it to start my garden's seedlings this year as well.
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 4:12 pm Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
GardenGirl wrote:
This system is designed for urban folks and gardeners, not for pot.
Sure, sure that's what all the garden hippies say... (joking)
But seriously, the main draws for hydroponics are:
* Illegal Drug production
* Legal Pharmaceuticals and seed labs
* Growing seedlings
* Growing fresh herbs
* In the future, possibly indoor farms fueled by renewables.
I included some links about large scale indoor food production
projects. And maybe I should change my position about whether
this technology is worthwhile. Honestly, as inefficient as this looks
this is probably going to be a growth area. Energy prices will
continue to skyrocket and food prices as drought expands eating
away at our already stressed food production systems. So food
prices will be going way up and prices may justify using energy this way...
Wind, solar, agrichar, coal, coal gas and Toe to Heel Air Injection have
potential to expand. It's questionable how much potential, but there is
there is the possibility for continued growth in these areas over the next
couple years, for at least as long as the economy holds together.
And food production is likely to be one of the areas that gets
preference for available energy resources. So for a number of
reasons you may be getting into an area that will have a great deal
of interest.
GardenGirl wrote:
Stepping this system up to being completely
sustainable is very easy, I just haven't done it yet, but I will as part
of my Alternative energy research. Since it is maybe all told 200
watts, it should be very easy, to put a solar cell and a deep cycle
battery together and then no grid energy used. (maybe it will cost $300)
I didn't mention solar because I have trouble labeling anything that
uses rare earth metals as sustainable, but you're absolutely right
that a solar array would work for at least 20 to 40 years. And
actually you could probably even go without the battery and just
use it when the sun is shinning.
Or hey, if you do that why not just use a window with some
reflector shutters... The fish/hydroponics idea is very cool. And with
solar/batteries, you could actually operate your indoor sun for more
hours then the winter sun provides. But I don't know, an indoor
window box to bring in more light would be much simpler and
probably have similar performance.
GardenGirl wrote:
In terms of inputs for the fish, no problem
either. A simple indoor vermiculture(worm bin) would be easy, and
then the fish would eat the worms that in turn breed from eating
my families waste.
That sounds like a good plan.
GardenGirl wrote:
And yes I will be using it to start my garden's seedlings this year as
well.
Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Posts: 1087 Location: Central Texas
Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:53 pm Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
@ Patti:
Please get out your Kill-O-Watt meter and show us the numbers of kW-hrs it takes to power all the indoor electrical hydroponic stuff over a 24-hr period, i.e. measure the power use of each light and the water pump. It would be eye-opening to see the actual numbers. Are those 6-ft long light fixtures? Two bulbs per fixture? Times 3?
(Lets assume each bulb is rated at 17.2 watts. Six 17.2 watt bulbs running 12 hrs per day would correspond to needing a solar electric system that costs about $1,900, assuming you get 5.5 hrs of sunlight per day, everyday. And this estimate is probably too low.) And that's just for the lights.
Your solar electric system will certainly cost much more than $300 to power that indoor hydroponic system. Just one new 100 amp-hr battery is around $200. You'll need more than four 100 amp-hr batteries for sure. (+ PV panels, charge controller, inverter, wiring, hardware...such as stainless steel racks, chains, vinyl tubing, valves, fittings...)
The devil is in the details.
Please consider this post constructive criticism. You are a great inspiration!
Keep up the great work!
But lets be real.
I have an Excel spreadsheet that estimates the cost of a stand-alone solar electric system to power the items you list in the spreadsheet. PM me if you would like a copy. _________________ About my avatar: Guess.
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 1:07 pm Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
GardenGirl wrote:
Thank you Steam Cannon, it is always nice to hear from a fellow Masshole.
Thanks GardenGirl, I'm glad you appreciate my input...
xerces wrote:
You can replace the indoor lights with old fiber optic
cables. This will lower your energy costs drastically.
Usually one does not come across used fiber optics, though I actually
did but only one time... Unless you use a sun tracking concentrator
with the fiber optics, pretty much anything else will perform better.
Skylights, windows with reflectors and light tubes all work better. In
fact if you want really simple there is this thing called a greenhouse,
you can put mirrors around it. And if you put enough mirrors, in the
summer it will be a vegetable cooker! Hahaha
PeakOiler wrote:
(Lets assume each bulb is rated at 17.2 watts. Six 17.2 watt bulbs
running 12 hrs per day would correspond to needing a solar electric
system that costs about $1,900, assuming you get 5.5 hrs of sunlight
per day, everyday. And this estimate is probably too low.) And that's
just for the lights.
That sounds about right... Even if you use a 9 watt $250 LED light
bar, you're still going to have trouble keeping your solar power
costs below $1000... This is probably why most off grid hydroponics
systems use passive solar light and a solar powered pump. A power
system for running your pump will cost $400 to $500 dollars, but
that's not too bad.
Here are some links and back of the napkin calculations:
Solar-PowerPAC
$350 with 10w high-quality Sunwize solar panel
The built-in battery has a 21 amp hour capacity and is charged using the supplied solar panel
http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-devices.html
Joined: Sep 16, 2007 Posts: 1344 Location: Oklahoma City, USA
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 4:52 pm Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
Aquaponics is even easier to do outdoors than indoors. This indoor set up looks like a great way to have fresh food in winter. _________________ Conservation is conservative
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment."
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 4:59 pm Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
xerces wrote:
You can replace the indoor lights with old fiber optic cables. This will lower your energy costs drastically.
You won't get nearly (if any) the yeild required to make the entire system worthwhile. This might be useful for seedlings and germination but then why not just use florescents?
The plants need more lumens per meter (LUX).
The more LUX, the more food.
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:58 pm Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
GardenGirl ignore those naysayers.
I still love these spaceship technologies. Without in-ship agriculture the Empire's many races would have succumbed. It was Quorn (tm) and sprouts that propelled the Betazoids off Betazed, sustained the Romulans in their victories, and claimed succos for the Bajoran in their persecution under the Cardassian Empire for many years.
Into hyperspace I say!
No really. If you have a lot of solar panels on your roof and batteries in the basement (or better yet a year-round freeflowing stream and small-scale hydroelectric system) I think these technologies would be a swell addition to the bugout cabin in the winter time.
Otherwise I would go for a heavily insulated greenhouse and little sprouted greens. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:22 pm Post subject: Re: Check out my indoor Aquoponic Garden
The point is urban agriculture can work with limited retrofitting IF a few principles are applied.
If there is sunlight use it, this includes indoor window areas in skyscrapers and buildings, ceiling windows, rooftops, balconies, sidewalks, window ledges. All of these areas can be used to grow food or condiments. Old fiber optics can be reused to pipe sunlight indoors to grow more food. Basically, every single calorie harvested freely from the sun will help a mega-city as much as 10 calories worth of hydro-carbon energy. The trick is to do it intelligently and non-intrusively. _________________ http://backtowilderness.blogspot.com http://grown-up-permaculture.com
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ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap 
