I spent all day today putting together my Aqua Phonic System. What I am going to be able to do is in the winter time I am going to be able to grow vegetables as well as fish. So far I have metal shelving unit here. You can get this at any hardware store it is really easy to find. Then I also have a 55 gallon fish tank. Now in our fish tank, I have a water pump. I have attached this clear vinyl tubing to the pump that is in there and this is basically called the quick connect push connector.
That is it, that is it. That is all you do. It is now connected and I have attached it to this valve. This valve allows me to shut that flow off and it also allows me to adjust the amount of flow. One thing I definitely want you to know, before you set up your own Aqua Phonic System, is know that, you are not going to able to introduce any fish into that environment for about a week, so you want to make sure that it is the right environment for your fish before you even get them.
On top of the fish tank, I have cut some strapping and that strapping is supporting my planters. Right along the bottom of the planters, I have many little holes. What that is doing is that it is allowing the water to drain through back into the tank. In the galvanized planter, I have put about two inches of three quarter inch gravel. Then, on top of it I have this white stuff. This white stuff is pearl white and this is what our veggies are going to grow in. Our plants are going to get nutrients from the water because we are going to have fish in there and water with the fish waste is going to come into our planter box here and that is were our veggies are going to get the nutrients.
I put up these three fluorescent lighting fixtures with 5000 degree Kelvin balanced fluorescent tubes underneath and that is what is going to be our sunlight for our veggies.
Now for our water circulation I have also installed a timer. I do not want my water to flow 24 hours a day continuously so I have my pump system here on this timer and it’s set to allow the pump to pump for one hour and then shut off for three. I also have my lights on a timer and my lights are going to stay on for 12 hours and they are going to come off for 12 hours.
Alright, so the next thing I have to do before I put this project to bed for the night is lay in all of my seeds.
I have got one of those cool seed, spreader thingies. This is just a mix of lettuce that I am going to plant here. Now I am just going to lay it out in rows.
Now this is a mixture of white and red Swiss chard. The next thing I have to do is just adjust these lights and I want to bring them down pretty much all the way. But our Aqua Phonic System is often running. Everything is running perfectly. I have got my lights on and set up to a timer. The water is circulating and that is set up to a timer also and about my seeds planted. I am Patti Moreno the garden girl. Thanks for watching.
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