Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi, here is a follow up to my initial setup test system.

The same fish as incarnation 1 (previous post), in a 64 litre tote and a 30 litre flood and drain bed with hydroton,growing soft fruit bushes, butternut squash and bell pepper, a sort of advance plant bed for the big system outdoors, which is in the process of being built, there are videos of this process at 'aquaponicsrhyl' channel on you tube
BUT . . . . .
I'm going BIG and outside.
I plan to build a polytunnel using clear tarpaulin, bamboo and 21.5mm pex pipe, using a 1000 litre black, food-grade I.B.C. as a fish tank, feeding 2 x 500 litre grow beds each made of half an I.B.C., sitting on a near 500 litre sump. I intend to run a few drainpipes for strawberries and watercress, but I hope to concentrate on any fruit or veg that I can successfully grow using this technique. I want to move my 6 goldfish into the big tank,but give them some other goldfish, about 15, and maybe 30 mirror carp for company, that should do for a start, the new fish will be 2-3" long I think.
I have lots of 64mm black drain pipe so I am going to use that to create some external siphons (thanks Affnan) to the grow beds, they will be resting on a metal table,they will sit on 18mm board which is attatched to the back wall, I think that will take the weight of plants and gravel .

So far we have the sump buried and the cage for the grow beds cut, next its cutting the I.B.C. to make the grow beds themselves and sorting out the siphon, I had 1 tonne of 14mm river gravel delivered, and some large concrete blocks to help create the height difference so that the system will run on one pump in the sump. I have a hailea hx 4500a pump, 2000l/hr , 35watts, 2.4m head height.Just had delivered the 20mm pipe and tee's to control the flow, along with the pond liner and other plumbing items.

As it's raining, my mind turns to shelter and the design of the polytunnel or hoop house, I'm mainly concerned with the wind as it destroyed a couple of fence panels couple of years ago, , so the arch will run L to R as you look at the site, arches made by bamboo lashed together, covered with tarpaulin, but that's this weeks job!

I have been getting stuff ready for this project for the past 6 months so there really isn't too much to buy, but there is a tonne of stuff to learn, and still a bunch of work to do in the garden.



any comments or questions welcome

love those black IBCs - I wish I had known about them before I got the white ones.

Just be careful with the black IBC's... they're often used for "light sensitive" chemicals... nasty ones...

Cheers guys, rest assured they are food grade IBC's, used to transport orange juice, had a faint whiff of it too, but pretty clean when they arrived. I think they will limit algae but may cause temperature problems, I won't know until it's running !

Hey Mr57,
How are you going with your system?
I am expecting 4 IBCs on Friday and am looking looking looking for other systems using IBCs so I can get inspriation and the best possible system I can.
Would love to hear and see your system now.
Dale

Mr 57 and Dale

If you are using IBCs I would recommend insulating and burying one complete IBC as a sump (pics in link below). If you are going to dig a hole then you might as well dig a big one This gives you heaps of spare capacity to expand your grow bed area and also adds some temperature stability.

I didn't use IBC as my grow beds (only for my fish tank and sump), but if I did I definitely would not have put them on top of the fish tank. I reckon that just makes things to awkward.

I think I would have cut the IBCs into beds around the 40cm mark and using the cage as a surround, put them up on bessa blocks.

Would insulating an Ibc with som r32's and cladding it work ok?? I tried to dig out the back got bout 6 inches and it's like concrete! Grass doesn't even grow up here clay and rocks!

Rocks and clay, sounds familiar, that's why I got my brother to dig the hole

I used roof insulation and marine ply to insulate my sump. I guess anything to keep the cold winter ground from chilling the system. Gets pretty cold in Bendigo hey

Yep had a few -1 already was 3 at 7 last night scary!!! Also gets bloody hot over summer last summer we had a week where it didn't get much under 30 and the days were over 40's iv got a 6m x 7m pergola might put my tank under there.

hi all,
after some time away from the building project in the garden i am nearly back into the swing of things.The test system in the kitchen is still going strong, has a ph of 7.2, and the last ammonia test was negative, so all groovy there. Enjoyed the strawberries and the peppers, and since the pepper and mint plants left the grow bed, there has been a spurt of growth in the blackberries.
I hope to continue with the build this week, will post progress as and when

thanks to everyone for their comments

be seeing you