[Alpharius]

How I Set Up My Twenty Gallon Tank



Step One:
The first step was to buy everything I needed.
*A growlight - Important not to use windows to for sun/heat. Temperature can vary as sun comes through a window and can seriously fuck up your fish if a tank gets too hot or too cold. I knew the growlight from my Aerogarden wouldn’t be enough. I bought a 2ft growlight for about $25 and mounted it on the wall above where I wanted the tank.
* I bought a 20 gallon tank with all the decorations I wanted in it. Tip: Don’t get live aquatic plants, they’ll compete with your plants on top for resources.
* An air pump/bubbler + tubing.
* An air stone to hook the pump/bubbler to.
* Hydroponic pots and grow media - important note: don’t use dirt or rocks from outside, you want chemical free, food safe materials or you’ll be poisoning your fish, plants, and possibly yourself.
* You can get organic heirloom seeds fairly cheap here.



I set up the aquarium and added water. You can either use ph neutral water found at some aquatic pet stores, or treat tap water with a dechlorinator. I used tap water and some of the dechlorinator that came with the Aquafarm. You can either cycle your aquarium without fish (Google “Fishless cycling”), or get some bottled bacteria and add your plants right away. The plants take ammonia, and nitrates/nitrites from the water that would otherwise kill your fish. One way to cycle your aquarium is to heavily plant it, making it perfect for an aquaponics tank that has a lot of sprouts already established.

Take a small sample of water from the aquarium to your local pet store when you think it’s ready. They should be able to test the water quality and let you know if it’s safe for fish. Once your water is ready, add a few fish at a time, too many too soon and you can fuck up the chemistry of your tank and leave you with a bunch of dead fish and lost money.



Alternatively you can throw some fish in the tank, hope the odds are ever in their favor, and let them sacrifice themselves to cycle the tank. Seems like a waste of money and life, to me.

While I was setting up the aquarium and waiting for it to be ready, I grabbed seeds of what I wanted to grow in my new garden. Since I had lettuce from the hydroponics tank, I started with arugula, kale, microgreens, parsley, basil, cilantro, and a couple flowers I plan on potting outside later in the year. I started the seeds in ziplock bags, and let them get an inch or two before transplanting them into the pots. Pouring seeds directly into the pots seems like a good way to get seeds floating and sinking all over your tank.

For my tank I grabbed a regular 20 gallon fish tank a friend had in her closet for the past few years, washed it out, placed it where I wanted it in the house, then added the decorations, the airstones, then finally the water. I cut holes in the screen top that came with the tank and added some support to it to keep the pots in. I layered growing sprouts with my grow media making a tiered system of plants at varied levels inside the pots, so that all the plants weren’t clustered together and didn’t escape the pots and float away.

Once my water was given the go ahead, I grabbed two snails and added them first. I kept an eye on them to make sure they didn’t keel over and die or shoot straight to the surface right away. They help keep the tank clean and clear of algae. Again, I’m lazy so I’d rather let one or two of these guys do some work for me. The tank doesn’t need to be cleaned much, if at all. As the waste breaks down, the plants and bacteria utilize the ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites, keeping the aquarium from being a 20 gallon poisonous death trap.

Quote:

“Nitrite is a moderately toxic nitrogen based compound in the aquarium. Most of the time we wont and should not be able to "see" this form when using test kits. This is because nitrite is an intermediate molecule in the nitrogen cycle and is quickly oxidized to nitrate NO3- by bacteria in the genus Nitrobacter. When the nitrogen cycle is running efficiently and to completion, nitrite should be undetectable in the aquarium. Its toxicity is not as high as ammonia, but can still damage fish at moderate concentrations.

Nitrate is the most oxidized form of nitrogen in the aquarium. It is the least toxic of three main nitrogen based compounds NH3 NO2- NO3-. However, Nitrate can still "shock" fish if they are pulled from an aquarium with a low concentration and put into tank with a high concentration and vise verse.

Nitrate can be consumed by plants, algae and microorganisms for nitrogen assimilation. It can also be used by bacteria that live deep in the substrate where oxygen levels are 0. These Anaerobic zones promote a process called denitrification where nitrate is converted to nitrogen gas which then bubbles out of the aquarium.”

After the snails seemed to be doing well and my plants were growing in their pots, I checked the water again, then once I got the green light, I grabbed my first couple fish and added them in. Fish can be added every two - four weeks so as not to put your carefully balanced chemical equation off. Remember, one inch of fish for each gallon of aquarium.

I turn the growlights off at night and leave the bubblers on 24/7. They’re not that loud - I can hear my music at it’s normal levels. This second tank allows me to grow arugula, kale, microgreens and herbs to supplement my salads and meals throughout the week.



There’s an awesome DIY system you can set up on the cheap that can be found here: http://gardenpool.org/online-classes/int...helfponics - This will probably be my next project. I’m also thinking about getting a big 55-100 gallon tank and growing trout in it. Getting a good catch of smoked trout to treat myself to or give to people as Kwanzaa gifts seems like a pretty sweet idea...

So there we go, a $400 investment is turning into $15/week in fresh vegetables that haven't been sprayed with God knows what. My home looks nicer and has something unique for people to be interested in and look at whenever I entertain guests, and it's kind of fun to check up on the fish and see them swimming around from time to time. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go make a salad to go with dinner!