It has been a fun year and a half, building and maintaining a custom built desktop aquaponic system. One of the biggest lessons we learned is FORGET THE FEEDER FISH !!! We wasted a lot of time trying to do the fish element on the cheap. Maybe we had a couple of bad batches of the inexpensive feeder fish, but we are so much more comfortable running the system with a single Oscar and a single Plecostomus. The algae-eater keeps the sides of the tank clean, and the Oscar is a hearty fish that thrives on fish pellets, worms or even bits of lettuce.
The other big lesson we learned is to stay on top of the water chemistry! The hardest has been in keeping the nitrates low enough. The Oscar seems to survive it all, but it would be better to have the water chemistry in more acceptable ranges. One problem is our municipal water supply isn’t that great. It has a lot of chlorine in it which is very bad for fish. During our more aggressive water changes we are bubbling several gallons of city water for 24-48 hours before introducing it to the fish tank.
The high nitrate fish water, however, is GREAT for plants. Our houseplants certainly do well with this water, and any excess is gladly introduced into our garden beds during the growing season to amp up the nutrient content of our soil. Due to our configuration of the desktop aquaponic system, a manual water pump has been a very necessary tool to extract this high nitrate water from the tank. Siphoning from the bubbled city water container above the fish tank is a breeze using the manual water pump as a siphon, with the only caution being DO NOT OVERFILL YOUR FISH TANK !!!
Anyway, this has been a fantastic learning experience. If you can tell that along the window are HUGE green onions, I think you can tell how great this system is for growing food indoors! These green onions were started with the small root ends of grocery store green onions that would have otherwise just been thrown into the trash. Pretty amazing if you think of it.
2 Corinthians 4:2-6New King James Version (NKJV)
2 But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.