Patent Application
20200305398
The present invention relates to aquaponics and more particularly to an apparatus or structure to accommodate an aquaponics installation or instance.
An aquaponics stand or construction may be comprised of a basin, a frame and a grow bed. The stand may be assembled and water added to the basin along with a chosen edible aquaponics species and edible plantings in the grow bed. Water from the basin, with accumulated fish waste, is pumped to the grow bed to fertilize the edible plantings.
In certain embodiments the frame comprises a frame base, at least one frame vertical support, and a frame tray. The at least one frame vertical support may be coupled from the frame base to the frame tray and the grow bed may sit on the frame tray. The basin and grow bed may be ring shaped and have a first cylindrical diameter greater than the frame tray inside diameter and the grow bed may have a funnel shaped end with a smaller diameter than the frame tray inside diameter. The stand may be sized for a small educational desktop instance or scaled upward for a commercial or practical application.
Numerous other advantages and features of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description of the invention and the embodiments thereof, from the claims and from the accompanying drawings.
The objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more readily appreciated upon reference to the following disclosure when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein reference numerals are used to identify the components in the various views.
The invention or features thereof described herein is or are adaptable to embodiments having many different forms and functions related to the disclosure herein. The embodiment shown in the drawings and will be described herein in detail with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the principles of the invention and is not intended to limit the invention to the specific embodiment(s) illustrated. Embodiments consistent with the present invention may be alternately embodied, practiced, and/or carried out in various ways or implementations. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein, as well as the abstract included below, are for the purposes of description and should not be regarded as limiting. Reference throughout this specification to “embodiment” should inform a person having ordinary skill that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention but not necessarily in all embodiments. The features, structures, or characteristics of any embodiment of the present invention may be combined in any suitable manner and in any suitable combination with one or more other embodiments, including the use of selected features without corresponding use of other features. Modifications may be made to adapt an implementation of certain features to the essential scope and spirit of the present invention and certain features, limitations, or elements of each embodiment can be omitted or replaced with equivalents. It should be understood that other variations and modifications of the embodiments of the present invention described and illustrated herein are possible and part of the spirit and scope of the present invention. Finally, the disjunctive term “or” herein, is generally intended to mean “and/or”, having both conjunctive and disjunctive meanings (i.e. not an “exclusive or” meaning), unless so indicated. And, as used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, “a”, “an”, and “the” should be interpreted as “at least one” and include plural references unless the context dictates otherwise.
Embodiments of a stand or structure according to the disclosure are particularly well suited to an aquaponics application or instance. Moreover, the stand is scalable depending on the size of the aquaponics instance or application. In general, the embodiment is comprised of a basin 20, a frame 30, and a grow bed 40. In preferred embodiments, the basin 20 is substantially cylindrically shaped with a closed-end, a basin side wall, and a basin top edge or basin rim at or around the periphery of the basin open-end. Similarly, the grow bed 40 is also preferably cylindrically shaped and funnel shaped wherein the diameter of the grow bed 40 is smaller at the grow bed drain 46 than at grow bed side wall 44 that terminates at the the basin top edge or basin rim. A preferred frame 30 may be comprised of a frame base 32, at least one frame vertical support 33, and a frame tray 34. The frame base 32 may be positioned at or around, the basin 20, which when filled with water and fish can provide ballast for the frame 30. The at least one frame vertical support 33 is coupled between the frame base 32 and the frame tray 34 and vertically supports the vertical position of the frame tray 34 with the basin 20 positioned beneath the frame tray 34. A grow bed 40 is positioned or seated on the frame tray 34 and is in two-way fluid communication with the basin 20.
The frame tray 34 may be substantially ovular, ring, or collar shaped with an interior rim width or span. In preferred embodiments, the frame tray 34 is substantially ring shaped and the grow bed drain 46 has a funnel shape with first drain width that is smaller than the frame tray 34 interior rim span, and a second drain width that is larger than the frame tray 34 interior rim span.
Accordingly, the outside lower surface of the grow bed 40 will sit or rest on and against the interior rim of the frame tray 34 with the first drain width received through and positioned on one side of the frame tray 34 and the second drain width seated on or against a second side of the frame tray 34. Moreover, the frame base 32 and frame tray 34 may each be substantially ring shaped and have substantially the same outside diameter, but the frame tray 34 may have a smaller effective interior span to prevent the grow bed drain 46 from falling through the frame tray 34.
The at least one frame vertical support 33 is coupled between the frame base 32 and frame tray 34. The at least one frame vertical support 33 may comprise a rod with a first end that is received by and seated in (or extends through) the frame base 32, a second end that extends to and is received by the frame tray 34. In preferred embodiments, a plurality of frame vertical supports 33 are distributed around the periphery of the basin 20 and each support 33 extends substantially parallel to the other supports 33 and couples the frame base 32 to the frame tray 34. As illustrated, the frame 30 may also include a ring or collar shaped middle frame support 36 that may be seated on the basin top edge 24 and oriented substantially parallel to and between the frame base 32 and the frame tray 34. Finally, the grow bed 40 is preferably substantially funnel shaped and has a grow bed side wall 44 that transitions to a grow bed drain 46. A grow-medium such as clay pebbles are placed in the grow bed 40 and living plants are seated in the grow-medium. Water from the basin 20, fertilized by the fish waste is then pumped to the grow bed 40 to feed and water the plants.
An exemplary preferred embodiment is illustrated in the figures. The basin 20 and the grow bed 40 are formed from a five gallon water jug that is cut perpendicularly to the longest dimension of the jug. The bottom end of the water jug comprises the basin 20 and the spout or opening of the five gallon water jug comprises the grow bed drain 46, which is inverted and seated on the frame tray 34. It follows that the basin 20 and grow bed 40 each have a cylindrically shaped cross section and have a common diameter at the widest portions. Moreover, it is preferred that the jug be cut at more than 50% of the length of the five gallon water jug cylinder so that the basin side 23 is longer than the grow bed side wall 44. The frame base 32 and frame tray 34 may each be substantially collar or ring shaped and a plurality of frame vertical supports 33 may couple the frame base 32 to the frame tray 34 with the ring shaped middle frame support 36 positioned between the frame base 32 and frame tray 34 and seated on the basin top edge 24. Further, any of the ring shaped frame 30 components may be assembled from one or more rings as illustrated in
The basin 20 and grow bed 40 are in two-way fluid communication. A first-way of communication comprises fluid flowing from the grow bed 40 and through the grow bed drain 46 to the basin 20. A second-way of communication comprises fluid pumped through a tube 56 connectable to a pump 50 positioned in the basin 20 and fed upward through the grow bed drain 46 into the grow bed 40. See
While various embodiments have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of a preferred embodiment should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments, but should be defined only in accordance with the following claims and their equivalents and all such modifications that fall within the scope of the claims.
