This system took 6 months, and $2.5k to build, id hate to see it go, but i know something has to change.
Its been running for 2.5 years, and its had a pretty good run. But this was always intended to be a community project to try and get others to take part and get involved. And although there have been people who have shown interested and participated it needs dedicated volunteers to be regularly involved with the system to keep it running.
I’d say there are 3 paths going forward.
1- We get 3 more dedicated volunteers, so we can have somebody to check on it every week.
(not maintenance but just checking to make sure its working, and maybe help tend the plants, and clean the glass)
2-We convert it to a Hydroponics system, this eliminates the fish from the system and we just use chemicals to provide the plants with nutrients.
(We can keep the grow bed and the sump on the workshop side, and take the tank home, worst case for this is we kill the plants, but we don’t have to worry about killing fish anymore. This would cost money to do the conversion, and does require more automated controls to get it to function.)
3- We kill the whole system and remove it from the space entirely.
(I don’t like this option as I’d just be shoving it into a storage unit in this scenario.
[a potential 4th would be to turn the fish tank into a decorative tank, (either with the grow bed converted to hydroponics, or removed) disconnected from the grow bed, with decorative fish and decorations. I would have to design and build a new filter system to filter the water for the tank, but would likely be more easily maintained than the full aquaponics system]
- Find volunteers
- go hydroponic / remove fish tank
- go hydroponic / decorative fish tank
- decorative tank only
- remove everything
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