Thoughts on my design

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Hey guys. I am a designer and fabricator. I have done a lot of work in the composites industry, custom automotive and industrial design and fabrication. After getting laid off last summer I started my own business doing custom fabrication and design. I also had more time to spend on one of my old hobbies and that is aquaria. I have always gone out of my way to keep my tanks as low maintenance as possible and recently I decided to take that to the next step and grow plants on top of my aquarium to help maintain the ecosystem of the tank. I did a little research and found out this is actually a whole big thing called aquaponics. I have really only been pursuing it for a couple months now but I have already learned a lot thanks to all the great info that's out there.

I didn't see many cheap easy solutions for people to get into AP so I decided to refine the design I used on my first tank and had a prototype 2.0 piece made. I will be doing a small run in the near future and thought I should see what the experienced folk here thought about it. 

The design replaces a fish tank lid and is similar to a traditional hydroponics netpot system but is fixed on top of the aquarium.

This tank also has a small ebb and flow container behind it that is probably about 2 gallons. This is nice because it also allows the water in the tank to drop a little bit on the net pots. It is currently running an hour on and an hour off. I would like to go a little bigger on that tank to allow the water level to drop a little more in the aquarium.

I think this dual system is ideal because there is a ton of filtration going on. My other system is just a lid and currently had no mechanical filtration but had a bubbler pad under each large net pot which creates a current and carries waste up into the pots which also have red wigglers in them. Both systems are very young but both seem to be doing very well so far.

Don't mind my spindly plants. I figured out a couple days ago my lights were too far away. Even since yesterday they have perked up quite a bit.

Anyway I am going to try to sell these lids and eventually if things work out maybe a complete system. For now I am going to leave lighting up to the consumer since making something custom would require too much certification and liability. This system has high powered LEDs encased in Epoxy and glued under the net pots submerged. There are now some submersible aquarium lights people can attach to the side of the tank that would make things pretty easy. I am going to add some more holes for cords, airlines, water lines etc to make them as versatile as possible.

This lid will fit the following tanks

15 Gallon	24 1/4 x 12 1/2 x 12 3/4	21	170
20 High	24 1/4 x 12 1/2 x 16 3/4	25	225
25 Gallon	24 1/4 x 12 1/2 x 20 3/4	32	282
30 X-High

If it's successful I will branch out to others.

So what do you guys think? Anything I need to improve or change before I do my first small run?

I looked around and didn't see anything about shameless advertising so if this is out of step just let me know or delete this part

I do custom fabrication and design. I can do 3Dmodeling and have access to machining.

If anyone needs anything designed, machined, fabricated or wants help brainstorming or designing let me know.

https://www.facebook.com/MatrixGarage

http://matrixgarage.com/

[Siggy G]

While I'm sure it works, I think it wouldn't appeal to most aquarist's sense of aestetics to completely cover the top of the aquarium like that. I would suggest a hang-on type design, similar to the way many filters hang on the back of a tank. You could even incorporate a light fixture to illuminate both the tank and the potted plants. It could either take up the whole length of the back of a small tank, that way multiple units could be used on long tanks. Or it could U-shaped, wrapping around the back and sides, and be tank specific.

I think there is definately a market for something like this, although I'm sure I've seen something similar advertised in an aquarium magazine. For an initial small batch I think fiberglass would be the most cost effective. But you probably wouldn't start earning anything till you had enough volume to get some injection molds made.

To get me to buy something like this it would have to be visually pleasing, easy to install and not too expensive. The last point needs to be emphasized. I've seen a lot of good product ideas go nowhere because the people selling them wanted to start making money from the get go. You should expect to invest quite a bit of time and money into this to get going.

Good Luck!

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Thanks for the input I would see this as more for someone with an equal focus on the plant side as the aquarium side. You really can't see much from the top of an aquarium usually anyway. Bubblers and current make the water almost impossible to see through. The pots do detract from the very top level of the tank but also could add for some tanks, especially once the roots grow in it seems almost more like a natural environment to me for many fish who live near rooted river banks.

It's definitely not for everyone but I would think could interest many. The greatest advantage is that it will be a very cheap option especially in comparison to most of the options I have seen on the market.

I also feel like it may be a easy way for people to get into this kind of thing without feeling overwhelmed. Hydroponics always kind of scared me because I didn't want to jump into the deep end and need to worry about all the nutrient ratios and exacting water quality issues and all that. Bigger or more advanced aquaponics setups can be in ways even more overwhelming because you have two ecosystems trying to work together.  A setup like this has some but much less of those concerns especially if you are looking for a low maintenance setup. This one I am trying to get a little more advanced. I'm trying to get my PH in a more ideal range and amping up my feeding to get a lot of nutrients into the water while maintaining water quality with both fish and plants.

My other tank on the other hand has a few fish and inverts more aimed at cleaning and maintaining the tank. It's understocked so I shouldn't need to pay much attention to it and I have a couple pothos growing in it. I just dropped some flower seeds in the media and they are jumping up very quick. I hope for this tank to pretty much take care of it's self with very little maintenance or monitoring. 

My first design was actually a flower box style setup that went around the outside of the whole top of the tank and left the middle open or optionally with this lid in the middle. I left that design for now because the complexity, time and cost would be so much greater. I am currently working on a filter system that would hang on the back as you describe and would be about 4 inches deep by about 10 inches tall. It would be able to be used either with this lid or with a conventional top.

It would basically be a small ebb and flow planter box as well as the filter system for the tank.