Em²a Studios

October 10, 2010 – Line Up That Shot, originally uploaded by emacartoon.

Paul lining up over me for the break.

October 9, 2010 – Fishie TV, originally uploaded by emacartoon.

Yang watching Fishie TV. He says “Some day, fish, I will find out how you taste.”

There are some photos that I just can’t help but be proud of.. And then promptly wish I had a better camera at the time.

October 8, 2010 – Butterwart, originally uploaded by emacartoon.

The solution to at least my smaller pests at work. Om nom nom.

October 7, 2010 – Tower, originally uploaded by emacartoon.

By the power of Greyskull, I have the TOWAH!!

One of Nate Story’s ZipTowers (patent pending), a vertical hydroponic/aquaponic growing tower. Just need the pump, already planted seeds in it.

Also pictured is my super-scaled-down growbed. I lost a lot of plants, so I decided to swap to a smaller growbed (an ice tray), which allowed me to put the hood back on.

October 6, 2010 – Broken Tree, originally uploaded by emacartoon.

A halved European olive tree like so many on my property after the storms that tore Arizona apart.

October 5, 2010 – Broken Telephone Pole, originally uploaded by emacartoon.

One of 5 telephone/power poles that went down in yesterday’s storms (there’s talk of possible tornadoes). I was amazed that this one was broken in 2 places. Apparently they’re replacing them with metal ones now.

October 4, 2010 – Reflections, originally uploaded by emacartoon.

Blue skies after a hefty storm.

I’ve begun a pre-Project 365. We’ll see how this goes. My goal is to increase my skill as a photographer and learn how to capture the beauty that I see in my eye digitally. I will mostly be using my cameraphone, but I will also have my point and shoot and my digital SLR.

Ok, when I sat down to write the last blog post, I fully intended to write down my steps and instructions. Then I took a nap and all motivation died (can you tell where? I bet you can if you go back 😉 ).

So, since I got everything together, I’ve gone through about 3 distinct set-ups. It has evolved into a stable setup, but I will get to that in due course.

It all started with Ze Plans…

I changed a few design elements, but I’ll get to that.

First, I drilled a hole large enough to fit the tubing in the growbeds. Then I drilled holes every 2 inches along my water input tube, and fastened off the end with black electrical tape.

Next, I took the washed hydroton and spread a 1 inch layer in the bottom (I used a black plastic cup to keep the hydroton from falling out of the hole).

In my other bed, I did this, and placed the net pots on top of the tube and filled in around with more hydroton.

What I should have done at this point was pull the input through the hole and then put more hydroton on top. Instead, I had thought it would be sufficient to go over the lip and use the hole as an output. (Keep reading)

I hooked up my awesome water pump to the tubing and a T-valve that brought the water to the growbeds.

That output hole? Leaked even with silicone sealant and allowed too much water to build up in the beds. This needed to be fixed.

I let this drain, then poked holes every 2 inches underneath the bed (should have done this at beginning), careful to not get water on my electrical dremmel. This took the help of a friend and a towel. Growbed 2 went down nice, but I had forgotten about the bubblers in my tank. I had to take them out of the undergravel filter and let them loose in the tank while I solved that problem.. And placed shims down so the fish wouldn’t jump out.

Quick look at the tubing in the back.

At some point, I decided to remove the netpots (except one) because things like the strawberries weren’t getting enough water. I only left the one for the snap peas b/c it has finer aquarium gravel in the bottom that I figured they would need for stability.

After a brilliant conversation with a friend, I fashioned a window screen to fit tightly where the half hood used to be, cut a hole for the bubblers, tubing, and water pump’s power cord.

I propped the growbed up on two stacks of two 2x4s wrapped in saran wrap. I also wrapped some saran wrap so that the splashing wouldn’t get on the carpet, but now I didn’t have to worry about my fish jumping out. Hooray! One problem.. It was ugly.

I ended up shortening the bubbler tube, and propping up the back on 2 shims wrapped in saran wrap (I may only have the 2×4 pictured), placed under the end in the back. The medusa lamp holds 5 CFLs mixed full and daylight spectrums.

I didn’t include all the pictures above, but you can find them here:

Can I just mention how addicting this hobby is? I’ve already started contemplating quitting my day job to start an aquaponics firm.

Sylvia Bernstein has started an online Ning community for Aquaponics, where I’ve met and seen pictures of lots of people’s systems, at many different scales, and lots of people who have done this for much longer than I. It’s been awesome reading up on their ideas and notes, and it’s certainly helped me a bunch. If you’re interested in building your own, I highly suggest joining the community.

Ok, on to my stuff. As you read previously, I created my mini system as a model for my big system. I’m just waiting for my aquarium silicone to ship, and then I can show all the pieces together. Last Saturday, I picked up my new 55 gallon fully stocked fish tank. It comes complete with a ninja clown loach (Hattori Hanzou, or Hanz for short), a Kissing Gourami (Mick Jagger), a Leopard ctenopoma/African leaf fish (Edgar), a panda corydora (Edison), an albino corydora (Tesla), a bronze corydora (Marconi), a spotted corydora (Einstein), a panda barb (Confucius), and four silver dollars (Loony, Toony, Quarter, and Half Dollar). I was going to put my black neon tetras and otocincluses in there, but then Edgar yawned, and I decided that was a bad idea (Could swallow a shooting marble WHOLE). Hanz was a ninja and managed to survive stuck in a rock for the entire drive here, even though I had never seen him until this morning (and frankly, thought him dead).

I’ve been letting the tank cycle and get back up to strength for a week, now. Today, I added some plants into the tank and some charcoal bags in the filter to help keep the water breathable while the bacteria culture builds back up. I’ve also moved over the log with its attached java moss. On a side note, my 20 gallon looks really sad without it. Also for the 55 gallon, I’ve added the water heater set on low, and removed some of the “frocks” (fake rocks) that came with the tank, mainly so the loach would stop hiding in them.

On my to-do list is to attach my new air pump that’s coming in the same shipment as the aquarium silicone.

My seedlings are doing fantastically. I germinated the tomato, pepper, and lettuce seedlings using the paper towel method, extracted their little roots from the paper towel, and scattered them in the clay pellets.

I’ve discovered that there is a local hydroponics shop, called Sea of Green, that is branching into aquaponics and has some good information to share in person as well as on their website. I picked up a 50 L bag of hydroton, a fountain pump, a mesh filtration bag to go around the fountain pump, and some net pots from them. They also have fittings that can be bought from them, and they’ve even hinted that they’d let me use their tools to drill my own holes for said fittings should I not use one of their expensive containers.

I’ll post more in a couple days when I get the silicone caulk.