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Kamis, 19 Mei 2016

13 Creating a Greenhouse out of Electric Metallic Tubing EMT

Diposting oleh taba , di 02.41
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Picture of EMT frame, draped with plastic

So how do you grow 365 days a year when you have cold winters? A greenhouse is a big part of that answer. [In fairness, 365 Aquaponics also requires attention to fish selection and plant choice, but that’s for another post.]

The lightbulb went off for me when I saw a video of Michelle Obama’s hoop house garden, at the White House. An evening of internet surfing later, I knew all kinds of information about high tunnels, aka hoop houses.

But a standard hoop house wouldn’t work for me. The typical cross section of a hoop house is a circular arc, 12 feet wide if it’s 6 feet high. Not bad for crops grown in the ground, but murder if my crops are sprouting 3 feet above ground level, as in an aquaponics system that’s wholly installed above the surface of the ground. Besides, all that area at the edges is practically useless for either growing plants or allowing the gardener to walk around.

There are some nice greenhouses available for sale. Harbor Freight has an inexpensive 10’x12’ model that is used by many gardeners. But my townhome community has covenants that limit how tall my backyard structures can stand.

Besides, I wanted to see if I could come up with a sturdy greenhouse someone could build themselves from standard materials available at local hardware stores.

Now that I’ve lived with such a greenhouse for a summer, I prefer a simple hoop house over standard greenhouses. When it gets hot, you can simply remove the plastic from the hoop house for the hot months. If you need shade, drape shade cloth over the hoops. Nature takes care of ventilation and pollination. When the days and nights start cooling, put up the plastic again. 6 mil plastic will be stronger and provide better insulation, but 3 mil plastic lets in more light and still keeps things moderately toasty in the sun.

I used Electric Metallic Tubing (EMT) rather than the more typical PVC pipe because:
  • EMT allows me to achieve a precise shape
  • EMT is stronger
  • EMT won’t break down under UV sunlight the way unpainted PVC does.
  • EMT is sold in 10 foot lengths, allowing me to create an arched form that is 8.5 feet wide and around 7 feet tall from just two 10 foot lengths

Pictures (better, moving pictures) are worth thousands of words, so here is a movie showing how to set this up.

Cansolair heating air to 150+ degrees on a 17 degree day


Well get to 365 days a year of growing season yet...
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Rabu, 16 Maret 2016

Creating an Aquaponics System

Diposting oleh taba , di 23.00
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Creating An Aquaponics System

We constructed two aquaponics systems over the course of three days. Building an aquaponics system required a lot of experimentation and trial-and-error in order to determine how to best assemble the systems so that they would operate efficiently. A lot of the materials that we used were common and reusable items, such as the buckets, tubs, and tubing. Using these materials makes the system more cost efficient and easier to repair for the residents that will be using it, and it also saves money to build.

Clay Bed System:
A group of students was in charge of the task of crushing large pieces of red clay for the Clay Bed System. Once we crushed the clay into smaller pieces, we washed them in buckets of water to rid the clay of the dust that had accumulated on them. This is so that the dust will not clog the system. We then placed the clay into a large rectangular container at a downhill slope. The reason we sloped the clay downwards is so that when the water enters the clay bed from the sedimentator and the collector, it will easily trickle down and exit on the other side. We also placed plants into the clay so that they will receive nourishment from the water. The fish-rearing tank, sedimentator, collector, and clay bed were all connected to each other with tubes to allow the water to flow through all of the parts in the system. The water continually flows out of the fish-rearing tank and into the clay bed where it is filtered. The water is then recycled back into the tank.

Nutrient Film Technique System:
The Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) system involved more experimentation than the clay bed system in determining how to best connect the various parts together. The first step in building this system involved assembling the smaller parts together. In one of the filtration buckets, we filled the bottom with large rocks and put a large sheet of cotton over it, then layered smaller gravel on top of the cotton, put another sheet of cotton on top of it, and so on, until the bucket was filled to the top. This allows the water to filter through the bucket. We also altered many of the materials in order to fit the various parts of the system together. We cut holes into the tall white tubes with scissors, which was a difficult task, so that we could fit and connect the pipes through it. We also had to cut the pipes with a saw so that they would fit with each other.

Once the NFT system was assembled, we experimented with how to best arrange all of the parts together, similar to putting together the pieces of a puzzle. When we turned the system on and the water began flowing through, we discovered some leaks in the system, but were able to fix them by raising or lowering the buckets or by patching up faulty holes in the pipes. In the final step, we placed the clay pieces that we crushed earlier into plastic cups and put seedlings on top of it. We then placed these cups into the holes in the large pipe. The water flows through this pipe and the clay cleans and filters the water, while the water sustains the small seedlings. Similar to the clay bed system, the water flows out of the fish-rearing tank and through the various parts of the system, where the water is filtered and goes back into the tank.


Finally, and most importantly, the aquaponics system involves raising fish! The tilapia was kept in a large tank indoors. We used a large net to catch them in order to weigh them and calculate the starting weight of the fish. The younger tilapia was kept in tanks outdoors with netting over the top to prevent them from jumping out of their tanks. They are fed about once every two to three hours, except during the night, to ensure continued growth. Once the systems were completed, the tilapia was brought over and put into the large tanks, where they will be reared to provide food for families.

Clay from old water filters is used as the media inside of the clay bed system.
Lisie, Allie, June, and Amanda hard at work breaking apart fibers to be used as media in half of the cups of the NFT system.
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