Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Alright, trying to get an early start on my system this year, already have dozens and dozens of seeds germinating and about 75 gallons worth of media fully cycled and ready for transplant from my indoor aquariums.

What you see here is my 330g wood clad IBC fish tank. Going to have 2 IBC tops/ growbeds on either side, a 200 gallon sump, and two more smaller 75 gallon stock tank grow beds.

I have a few questions I am hoping this awesome community can assist with. First, the fish tank, as you can see I put some rigid insulation in before cladding it in wood, but there are still air gaps all over the place. I was thinking of drilling tiny holes and using great stuff expanding foam( pond version) to fill in all the gaps once I have it full of water, thoughts either way on this one?

Going to be keeping tilapia in here as well, already have fingerlings sourced.

Next question, This is going to be a CHIFT PIST system, Im going to gravity feed the growbeds from the fish tank, would it be better to plumb one SLO off the fish tank and divert it to several grow beds or do multiple gravity feeds out of the fish tank? my concern is the latter is getting the exact right placement of multiple holes to feed equally all the grow beds.

Thanks in advance to this awesome community!!! Below are some preliminary pics.

Hey pastryfish, I wouldn't bother about the holes, most of your heat losses will come from your growbeds and/or sump anyway.. Tank looks good..

Alright, here's a quick question for you savy aqua gurus, the drain on the IBC, the one I'm using as a fish tank, why not run a u shaped plumbing from the base of that, set it's height at the desired water level in the tank, and use that as a bottom fed drain to remove solids from the fish tank and gravity feed to growbeds?

Feasible? I hope my explaination is clear, I can work on a drawing if it will help.

You certainly can. I have that configuration on my juvi tanks. You need to be able to use some type of screening in the IBC before the drain pipe though. I haven't figured out what yet. I have 3/4" pipe, but that's big enough for a 2-3" fish to gte stuck in. If there's a place they can get and get stuck, it seems that they will find it. I'm also hoping that I can use the CO2 powered HVAC drain line cleaners to clean them occasionally by using the vertical height adjusting pipe at the top of the "U"

Alright, so here's a rough sketch of what I am looking at doing with my setup, most of the relevant details should be in the drawing, couple questions, are my SLO and grow-bed pipes about right size wise for my setup? I also have a pretty good contact for absurdly cheap IBC's so will likely expand this system rapidly. Thoughts? Critiques? Advice? Do I need a swirl filter? Also, air pump, I have lots of little aquarium 10 watts air pumps laying around but I'm pretty sure they wont be able to push air down that deep in the FT. Recommendations? Also, emergency backup air-pump system? Recommendations for that one? Thanks as always guys and gals!

Any thoughts? I could use a 2nd set of eyes before I push on, plumbing sizing sound about right?

I would plan to turn over the fish tank every hour so a 300 gallon fish tank would need a 600 gallon per hour pump. I use a 550gph pump on mine.

I use 1 1/2 inch pipe for my SLO and plumbing with 1 inch Tees and valves to control flow to each grow bed.

Alright! Been a super busy afternoon, cut up two more IBCs and got the painted, and put into place, the bamboo in front is only temporary, I plan to clad them out like I did the FT in the background. all thats left is plumbing!!

Looks like a great start, can't wait to see it finished.

Alright, been awhile since I've update, been a bumpy ride here and there but it's looking good now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUvLW6RNxMw

and a follow up update about 2 weeks later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8GwxbcXYpw

As a novice I observed one thing Id suggest you attend too.
Get your mint bushes into separate pots, otherwise their roots are going to clog up and take over your GB's,

voice of experience, although it was in hydroponics but the same principals apply

Believe me I'm finding that out, the chocolate mint seems to be the most aggressive of the bunch, I snip runners daily, digging in to catch subsurface runners, and we hack several pounds a week off. It's only in the beds for this season. Next year will be in strictly wicking buckets.

Peppers are looking good. I want to get some of the brain strain ones. So far, Ghosts are my favorite. Do you make any hot sauces?

Sauces, bbq especially. Powders, you name it I'll try it when it comes to spicy.