Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Greetings,

I am new at aquaponics. I recently got started by buy 4 blue barrels from a recycling company down the road here. After reading some more on aquaponics I soon realized that the barrels are supposed to be food grade. I am not sure if they are or not. Is there a way of telling if they are? Is there a suitable way just to thoroughly clean them out so they will work for the system?

Heath

If they are blue they are usealy good. Some times you will see a food grade symble stamped into the plastic on the top.

Scrub it out as clean as you can get with soap and then fill it with water and leave it alone to soak for a week or two. Once the sent is gone it should be good.

Ask the place where you got them as to their original ude. Hopefully they will know or at least they should.

Mine have a stamping on the bottom of the barrel.

The food grade stamp looks like a knife and fork ( I think, not too sure memory is old) after cleaning with soap and removing any of the obivious visiable residue to be safe you can use baking soda, it absorbs a good deal of residuals.

As Fred pointed out your most reliable way to find out what was last stored in a 55 is the person you got them from unless you can identify by the scent in the can, becarefull though as some of the contents may be harmfull to inhale.