Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

How many indeterminate tomato plants would you plant in a half blue barrel? I plan on using pea gravel for a grow media. Thanks in advance.

Well sir, I'd plant only two indeterminants in a half blue barrel. The 4-5 that I planted in my half barrel grew to a length of 12-15 feet long and would have kept going if they weren't so crowded. Had to cut a few of the branches off due to the plants growing all around each other cutting off airflow around themselves.

Learned a few things after growing last season. Each plant has leaf branches and fruit branches, in alternating order. Plants don't need very many leaves, so cut most of those off. The plant will take off and never look back. Hang on tight.

Give them something to grab ahold of while they grow, and it better be strong enough to support their weight. If you grew 2 in each barrel, gave it a good flow of water (I did flood and drain with siphons), and did some branch management, you should get quite a crop for months at a time.

Just my opinion. And don't let them tell you they are lonely all by themselves in such a big growbed. Soon they will dwarf anything else and you'll have to take a machete out there to tame your jungle.

Bill thanks for the info. I was planning on suckering the tomatoes and feeding them to the fish or the in-law's sheep. I'm designing my system so I can add string trellis later as the plants grow and doing the commercial technique of suckering and stringing the tomatoes.

I was thinking of constant flood with standpipes.

How's your set up doing? I've been looking at it for inspiration. You're not too far northeast of me.

Wind storm took out my greenhouse, but the tomatoes died out right before I got the plastic up. Used to say I was just using an expensive trellis for my tomatoes, lol. Didn't consider it a real greenhouse until the plastic was put on, but then it was too late for them. Frost killed them. What I get for waiting so long.

You are welcome to come and visit, but better check out the last few pages of my thread first. No sense coming over to see something trashed by the tail end of a tornado.

Build your system sturdy, whatever you do.

Yeah... I tend to do that anyways, old habit from the Army and years of blade-smithing. We had tornadoes come through here today. Nothing major in my area cept for downed lines, trees and unsecured stuff flying around.

Heard about that. Glad to hear you are alright and nothing happened at your place.

So, do you have a system or looking to build one?

About to build one. Was thinking either 2 blue barrel FTs with 4 barrels for GB or IBC for FT and 12 blue barrels cut in half for GB or do I need 24 blue barrels? Is it supposed to be 1:1 or 2:1 GB:FT? I can get all the food grade blue barrels I want for free if I just carry them off. The main thing is the wife demands that it not be ugly.

if you go 1:1 you won't need a sump, if you go 2:1 (gb to ft) you'll need either a sump or a sequencing valve

My opinion is that bigger is usually better. Using the IBC as a fish tank allows for much larger growth in the fish - think elbow room. They'll grow to suit their environment. End result of the fish size before you want or need to harvest will determine how many you should have in the tank to start with.

Fish tank - 275 gallon size. Realistic amount is 250 gallons. Most people don't fill the tank to the brim and keep it there. You were talking constant flood so we'll talk 250 in the tank and growbeds full of water (including media) giving us 275 give or take.

Filtration needed for 275 - 10 (55 gallon) half blue barrels, taking us to a 1:1 ratio, again more is better.
Pump large enough to turn over the water every hour through the growbeds - go larger than you need at least by 1.5, preferrably more. Bleed off some of the water pressure back into the tank for airation.

Keep the stocking density of the fish to final growout size/plate size.

I plan on putting metal roofing just in front of my future setup growbeds to make them more asthetically pleasing as seen from the road. Mine's OK with that. Something to do with curb appeal. I'm more concerned with taste appeal.

Thanks to both of y'all. I'm probably going to put some cypress fence board around the fish tank and grow beds to make them look nice.

So instead of using an air pump I could cascade the water for aeration?

What you are looking for is a way to increase the DO or disolved oxygen. Disolved being the operative word.

Airation happens with water disturbance, so either water flowing in and making a nice splash, or bubblers that kick the surface enough to mix the water with the air. Bubbles rising don't do the job. The air is contained in... well, air bubbles. Very little water/air mixing occurs from the air stones or other types of bubblers on their way up from the bottom. They need to create disturbance on the surface when they get there. Which requires a larger air pump than the little one that I have, hence my drain splash. I wanted to have the fish tank low and the growbeds high enough for that splash effect. My little air pump is there just to help things along a bit.

Diverting water through a "T" and cutoff valve at the top of the tank will assist in airation. Drains from the growbeds causing splash, as well as the air pumps and air stones all will keep the disolved oxygen levels up. Everything helps.

The more you have, the healthier your system will be.

I've never run air pumps on my aquariums, just using the splashing to dissolve oxygen into the water. I wasn't sure if there was some different dynamic involved here. AP systems aren't very different that how we run sumps to use plants for filtration.