An aquaponic system can support basement gardening, providing you with vegetables year-round. The aquaponic system is a sustainable gardening approach that allows you to nurture aquatic animals while simultaneously growing plants. Using aquaponics, nutrients, air and water are re-circulated within the system, creating an almost self-sustaining gardening system (see a graphic of this here). You can therefore build an indoor aquaponics garden to grow a variety of vegetables.
Setting the Basement Garden
An indoor garden poses unique challenges, as your sun-loving vegetables cannot receive sunlight. So the basic needs of the plants in terms of aeration, nutrient provision, space, light, and even support structures must be met. Basements can also be a bit cold, so you may have to heat it as most vegetables flourish at ambient temperatures of about 21 degrees Celsius.
You must overcome these challenges for your do-it-yourself aquaponics garden to flourish. Below is a description of how you can set up your aquaponics garden. However, before you begin setting up your garden, you need to have the following items in place:
- Hanging shop lights
- Chains
- Air Fans
- Heaters
- Light timer
- Organic seeds
- Growing medium
- Water Pump
- Antonius Frame
- Wire baskets
- Plastic containers
- Plumbing equipment and pipes
- Threaded adapters with O-rings
- Reducer
- Ball-type Water valve
- Media guard
- Bell siphon
- Fish
- Source of electricity
The quantity of each specific item is determined by the size of your aquaponics garden. If you have sufficient quantities of these items, you can begin to setting up your garden as described below.
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Heat the Basement and Prep it for Gardening
Basements are often dark, cold, and sometimes even damp. To begin with, you must light up the place. You must first set up the hanging shop lights properly so that they are able to light up the entire basement. You can then clean up the place so as to remove the debris. To be sure, you can choose some suitable vegetables in winter for the first test.
Then if it is damp, you will need to ensure that there is sufficient air circulation, so as to prevent rot. You will therefore need to set up your air fans. You must also set up the heaters. The size of air fans and heaters used depend on the size of your indoor garden, with home-use sized units being sufficient most of the time.
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Set-up the Aquaponics System
The aquaponics system offers unique benefits as opposed to other types of indoor gardens, which require you to water the plants grown in pots (some of them placed on tables) and also establish a drainage system. Not so with the aquaponics system. A properly set up aquaponics system will allow water to flow from the fish tank onto the growing bed where the plants are grown, and then drain back to the fish tank. This allows nutrients to be exchanged between the fish tank and the growing bed.
To set up an aquaponics system, you must first set up the frame. You will need an Antonius frame; or a frame of similar quality, strength and size. With the frame in place, you will then place two wire baskets – one in the bottom compartment; and the other in the top compartment.
You will place a plastic container inside each wire basket. A 50-liter plastic container should suffice for the bottom compartment, as it will serve as the fish tank. In the top compartment, a 25-liter plastic container will suffice, and it will be the grow bed.
Next, you must build the standpipe. You will first drill a hole in the plastic container that will serve as the grow bed, and then fix the male adapter through it with the threaded part protruding through its underside, and through the squares of the wire basket.
Fit rubber O-rings on the threads before screwing the female adapter into place. This will ensure a snug fit. You can then place the reducer on the male adapter. This entire unit is the standpipe that will drain the grow bed.
A bell siphon is then placed over the standpipe. A capped media guard is then fitted around the bell siphon. The bell siphon allows you to slowly flood your grow bed, and also drain it as quickly as needed. The capped media guard keeps the growing media and plant roots away from the bell siphon.
Next, you must build the ball-valve bypass, which will enable you to control the amount of water reaching the grow bed, with the ball-valve bypass diverting excess water back to your fish tank. This also allows for more water movement and aeration of your fish tank, hence improving the health of your aquatic animals. You must first affix your small electric submersible water pump inside the plastic container that will serve as your fish tank. Then, a T-bar is attached to the water pipe of the water pump. The 90-degree angle of the T-bar is attached to a simple ball valve, which allows water to drain back into the fish tank. The other end of the T-bar is attached to the water pipe that delivers water to the grow bed. With this set-up in place, the plastic container is placed in its wire baskets.
With the fish-tank and grow bed set up complete, the wire baskets encasing the plastic containers are placed inside their respective compartments in the Antonius frame. The fish tank is the filled with water. The entire set-up is then tested by starting the water-pump, and then checking that water is delivered and drained properly from the grow bed. If everything is working well, the grow bed is filled with the growing media, usually lava rock, river stones, hydroton, perlite, or similar matter. This is now a complete aquaponics system.
You will build as many aquaponics systems as needed.
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Seed the Aquaponics System
You will place small fish into the fish tank. You will also plant seeds in your grow bed. You will choose your variety of vegetable plants to grow. Nonetheless, it is advisable that you choose the dwarf varieties of vegetables or grow leafy greens because they can fit in the limited space available.
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Establish Plant Lighting
When the vegetables germinate, you will need to provide them with adequate light. You will suspend the fluorescent light bulbs on chains, and then ensure that they hang about 10 centimeters above the plants. You will also need to regulate how long the lights will stay on. Your light timers will allow you to ensure that the lights are on for a minimum of 8 hours (which mimics daylight), and off for at least 7 hours (which mimics the night).
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Check pests
You will also need to check for pests in your indoor aquaponics garden. The main pests to check for are scale and whiteflies.
In conclusion, a well set-up aquaponics garden will allow you to grow sufficient vegetables that will cater for your needs.