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Comment by Jon Nose on May 4, 2013 at 4:35pm

I use 2 inch pipe in my media (2 1/4 long) Find this makes it easier to just drop in net cups.. similar to a raft table.

Comment by drumurphy on May 4, 2013 at 11:30am

In a perfect world I'd like to be off the grid as much as possible - growing under lights is the one thing I dislike about indoors aquaponics. Here in Chicago there is a commercial operation called Grown Here. They have one row of Aquaponics, but the rest of their operation is aeroponic/hydroponic. It's a very aggressive urban vertical farm project; probably the biggest in the US. Their grow beds are 165 feet long and 6 (yes six!!) tiers high, all under lights. They have just opened their operation, and have built about 25% of their projected capacity, all inside a big box warehouse building. I believe they are going to have serious heat dissipation and micro-climate  issues come summer, with some costly energy costs. Still, it is quite an impressive spaceship, and I hope they are successful. 

The media we are using in the F&D is expanded shale - great stuff and much more reasonable cost than the hydroton clones, but you need to thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly, clean it before you use it. Ours is sifted to 3/4", but it comes with lots of grit and muddy muck from the crushing process. You need to get all that stuff washed out; very labor/time intensive - and a big mess to boot. It's pH neutral, once it's clean. 

Comment by Jon Nose on May 4, 2013 at 8:36am

I found that growing in a greenhouse the widest I could go on the top box was about 29/30 inches in order that enough light would  available to the second level (4 ft).  What kind of media you using in the F&D beds?

Comment by drumurphy on May 3, 2013 at 9:49pm

None of the lights are installed - that's my primary work for next week. The whole system will be under 6 bulb T-8 fixtures. Inelegant, but inexpensive as of today. Have been running water through the system this week making sure everything works and nothing leaks ... happy enough with how it's running. This is a rebuild / expansion of a small educational demonstration system. It has evolved into a sort of a design experiment to see how much real production you could fit into the footprint of a 2 car garage. We added 50 sq ft of  F&D media beds, a 2nd grow tank for fry to establish 2 concurrent generations of fish, and redesigned the water flows so the system would clear the water more completely. The older system (which I did not build) suffered somewhat in the water quality department. There is also space on the tank platform for a seedling start rack and aquariums for tilapia breeding. I'd personally prefer to locate such a system in a green house, but it is sitting in a large work space adjacent to classrooms where it was originally built. These 10 photos are more or less in reverse chronological order ...   

Comment by Jon Nose on May 3, 2013 at 8:37pm

You running lights for your lower beds ?