Food Lab

Hello! Welcome to our wonderful exploration of aquaponics. We are a team from Manchester Community College in Connecticut that has recently earned funding to help explore environmental issues through the lens of aquaculture. Our goal is to connect learners of all ages with their food. Join in on the adventure and watch us obtain our goal!

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Almost disaster on April 25th turned to this on May 5th. All it took was a little plumbing work. #mccfoodlab (at Manchester, Connecticut)

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Pride in Hard Work!

More beautiful pictures of E and M after all their handy work building frames for the new aquaponics system!

It’s hard enough to work in such small spaces but they’ve accomplished so much in such short time! Great job ladies!

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Success is Beauty!

E did a great job building the two tank stands!! The blue rings that hold the legs together were probably 10 pounds each… maybe not exactly but they were pretty heavy! 

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We get to build!!

FInally!! The time has come! Most of the wood has dried so we decided to start building some of the smaller Stands/Frames. Once we had some built we had to figure out where to put them. E and M worked hand in hand glueing and drilling the Fish Tank Stand and Degasser Stand. That Fish Tank Stand was incredibly problematic; the pieces should have fit like a perfect glove however they did not. Slowly but surely we got the whole thing together and by a miracle it was pretty darn level too. 

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A lot of wood. A lot of sealing. 

E sealing some of the wood before we can build. Before we started we made sure to mark all the pieces with which stand they were part of. D for Degasser, F for Fish Tank, etc. After all the sealing we must wait at least 24 hours for it to dry. 

See you all after 24 hours!

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This might work. 

With the use of a dumpster and a very sturdy broom the room has become maneuverable!

The chance of accidents happening has gone from 85% to a rough 10%. 

Next Step: To build some stuff!

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And so the process begins. 

The greenhouse is a very tight space. Not only does the space include all the equipment for the Nelson and Pade F5 aquaponics system but, it also includes all of the typical greenhouse stuff you’d image. 

 Next Step: Figuring out how all of this can coexist!

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What a mess! 

What may as well be called Day 1 of our process: Moving all the pieces of the puzzle into the lovely 9′ x 22′ borrowed greenhouse. Kudos to R, E, and a few others that put in A LOT of hard work to get to this point!!