Aquaponics 101 – Strawberry Towers

I promised some time back to demonstrate how to make strawberry towers. These are made of 80mm gutter downpipes and are very space-efficient as they hang vertically and hold a surprising amount of gravel. The only problem when working with vertical structures in Aquaponics, is that one cannot use gravity as with normal growbeds and a pump is thus needed to pump the water to the top of the towers.

They are ideally suited to hanging inside of the greenhouse and one can grow numerous types of plants and flowers in them. My design involved a small submersible pond pump in one of my ponds, piping up into the rafters of the greenhouse, valves to regulate water flow to each of the towers individually, six hanging towers with offset notches and a drain system to carry the water to the sump. I also built in a seventh valve as a bypass in case the water flow was too much.

The bottom of the downpipe has to be stopped. I used a 75mm stopper and a clamp on connector.

I then drilled a hole in the stopper and screwed in the connector.

The easiest way to make the notches is to cut the pipe half way, heat with a hairdryer and then quickly push it in as follows;

I then made a drain out of 50mm t-pieces and elbows.

The whole unit was then assembled and this is what it looks like. Note the six individual valves above the towers. This is great for regulating the water.

Each of the notches will now be planted with individual little strawberry plants.

Just comment below if anything is unclear.

Be Good

Synaptoman

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