Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I had a blue barrel system last year and it went really well.

This year I am building 2 inground 200 gallon tanks with 4 5 ft X 3 ft grow beds. Starting with strawberries and will rotate in Tomatoes, Okra, lettuce, spinach, etc.

I am going to stock with 100 bluegill beam.

It is a timed flood and drain system.

I put the tanks in ground to try to keep the temperature stable. It gets pretty hot here during the summer.

Welcome... look forward to seeing some pics of your build....

Welcome, I am not to far from you. My main tank is buried in the ground, and I am not sure I would do it that way again, at least not completely. Shade cloth or a cover over the tank can help with the sun and high temps.

You will have to give us an update on how it has gone this year. I am going to try to set up in Texas in about 6 months after I finish relocating there. I have a lot of ideas on what I would like to do, but this will be my first go around for aquaponics, so looking forward to learning a lot. Hopefully it will turn out to be one of the better things that I do with my time....lol

It went great. I expanded the tanks to about 250 gals each. The strawberries didn't do as well, but I got started with them. Then I put in some squash and it went really well. I am still getting cherry tomatoes and lots of okra.

The biggest issue is that I put the tanks in ground to help with the heat. That worked pretty well. I didn't lose many fish (5-6 out of 100). But we had a huge run of grasshoppers and they got into the tanks. I spent most of the summer trying to keep them out. The up side is they are free fish food. The down side is they are nasty after their remains float around all day. My water got murky.

The fix is better covers over the tanks. I plan to put in 1 more big tank (3' X 15' X 2' deep) and 4 more grow beds. I am also going to try to do away with rocks and gravel. I am replacing them with plastic bottle tops and using plastic bottle to support the plants. I will post some pictures so that it all makes sense.

I am also build a sitting garden around the tanks with a patio like are for us to hang out. It should be fun.

Where abouts are you moving in?