DIY Aquaponic PVC Garden

 

Do you like fish? How about gardening?

If you said yes to both of these questions, you’ll definitely love this project!

The Aquaponic PVC Garden is powered by water pumps that push water up from a fish tank, up a higher pipe where the plants are, and lets gravity do its work by letting the water drip back into the same fish tank.

If you do not know what aquaponics is, it’s a method of growing plants in water using the nutrients of the waste of fish or any aquatic animals thus also cleaning the water as it is cycled back. It is a very good project if you like taking care of fish, or plants, but simply do not have time to monitor them both.

This project revolves around making your own garden with materials that you can find in your local hardware store.

Gardening proves to be a tedious task for some people who don’t have time to water their plants and monitor them every time. Most of these people took that task and revolutionized gardening by making self-watering systems. But this isn’t like any of those systems. It might look similar at first glance, but the noticeable difference is the fact that the plants in this system get their nutrients from the fish waste in the reservoir.

Here’s a quick guide on making this project on your own.

You will need:

• 2x 10” long PVC Pipes cut in half or 4x 5” long ones
• 4x 90° PVC Elbows
• 4x PVC Caps (size dependent on the PVC)
• 2x Fish tanks
• 2x Water pumps
• 28x Drinking cups (with the potted plants of your choosing)
• A hand drill (for creating holes on the pipe) with hole saw bit
• A wooden stand (frame for your project)
• And lastly, FISH!

The main idea of the project is to put the pipes in such a way that you can pump water into the elevated pipe so it runs down along the pipe then back down the fish tank.

Once the pipes are together, you can drill holes using a hand drill with a hole saw bit attachment. With the materials listed, you can plant up to 28 plants, 14 on each setup.

Make sure you drill holes on the bottom of the cups so the roots of the plants can pass through and soak in the water.

Cover all the ends of the pipes with the caps.

Drill a hole on top of the elevated pipe and a hole on the bottom of the lower pipe.

Connect the water pump hose to the hole you made for the elevated pipe and see if any there are leaks on the elbows. Once you’re all good, feel free to set in the plants.

Make sure you fill the tanks with water so your fish could thrive. Rocks have been placed in the tank so algae can grow for the fish to munch on.

Congratulations! Your setup is complete! With this system, not only are you filtering the water for the fish using your plants, your fish’s waste in turn supplies nutrients for your green leafies. If the instructions above are unclear, we will have video tutorial for an in-depth guide.

For a great comprehensive step by step guide, with all your questions answered, on building your own Aquaponics system.