Operations Manual

Everything I know about running a cold-water aquaponics system in a New England basement, written down so somebody else can replicate it.

Full manual being ported to this site in Tranche 2. The current version lives as a markdown document in the project workspace — it covers system specs, daily/weekly/monthly/seasonal procedures, data collection, troubleshooting trees, cost tracking, yield records, and system improvement logs.

What the manual covers

Part 1 — System specifications. Physical layout, bill of materials, water flow diagram, electrical load, fish species profile (rainbow trout as the primary species, with notes on cold-water alternatives), plant crop selection, water quality targets, cycling protocol.

Part 2 — Standard operating procedures. Daily morning/evening checks. Weekly maintenance. Monthly deep maintenance. Seasonal transitions for a four-season climate.

Part 3 — Data collection. What to log, how often, where it goes. KPIs for fish (FCR, growth rate, mortality), plants (germination, days to harvest, yield/sqft), system (uptime, water quality excursions, energy use/lb), and financials (cost/lb, breakeven).

Part 4 — Troubleshooting. Emergency procedures (power failure, pump failure, fish die-off). Common problems and solutions for water quality, fish health, plant health. Decision trees for “fish acting strange” and “water quality out of range.”

Part 5 — Cost tracking. Startup costs (one-time capital). Operating costs (monthly). Cost-per-unit calculations. Revenue tracking. Monthly P&L template. Break-even analysis.

Part 6 — Yield records. Fish cohort tracking. Weekly harvest logs. Crop cycle tracking. Variety performance comparison. System performance over time.

Part 7 — System improvements. Change log. Experiment log. Lessons learned — what worked, what didn’t, ideas for later.

Part 8 — Contacts & resources. Emergency contacts. Suppliers. Reference resources.

Appendices. Conversion tables. Water quality test procedures. Feed calculation worksheets. Planting calendars for New England. Regulatory requirements for selling. Blank forms.

License

When published, the manual will be released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Use it, adapt it, share it — just not as a commercial product without asking.

Why the manual exists

From the design principles section of the manual itself:

If something isn’t documented here, it isn’t transferable. If it isn’t transferable, it dies with the person who knows it.

The manual is the claim that Node Zero is replicable. If I got hit by a bus, someone should be able to pick up the manual and the bill of materials and rebuild what’s running. That’s the standard.

Want help applying the manual to your own situation? Try Start.