Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well, I managed to come up with inventive physics once again, and hubs and I were able to get the monster aquarium into the house. I calculated it as actually being only 133 gallons (500L), based on its inside dimensions. For some reason, this makes it slightly less intimidating to me. Until it occurs to me that this is half the volume of my IBC fish tank.

I'm not sure what to do with the pleco. He's awesome, but I don't think he'd actually be very planted tank friendly, and I don't think he'd like the temps in my greenhouse system.

A pleco that size is worth massive coin, sell it.

I might do that. I'll feel a little guilty about it, because the guy was so set on the fish staying with the tank...but I can probably get over it.

I can't put water in my new aquarium. All the hoses are frozen.

I've been trying to figure out how I'd do an indoor aquaponics system. I'd need a lot more light in the living room than it has currently...it's got a lot of windows, and they face south, which in my hemisphere is where you get sunlight all day, assuming there is some...except we have that tree thing that prevented us from getting solar panels. And I'm not sure grow lights really fit all that well into my imaginary decorating scheme. (It's still imaginary because it doesn't actually exist yet. I've kinda been more interested in outdoor stuff than in getting moved in, since we came to live here.)

But...

I was just sitting here staring idly at the empty aquarium, and it occurred to me that it backs up against an outside wall. And on the other side of that outside wall is a deck. And the deck gets a reasonable amount of sunlight during the summer, and looks lovely with plants. All I need is a hole through the wall. Well, two holes, I guess. Water out, and water in.

I don't know if I could keep such a system going year-round, but it shouldn't be too hard to rig it to go back to being a normal aquarium during the winter.

Hmmm....

Here's the behemoth.

I just remembered I was planning to paint the living room, once I had decided on a color I liked better than the one it came with. But Hubs decreed, after helping me struggle this thing into place, that it will be staying in that exact spot forever.

Oops.

Looks like the one sitting empty in my garage....trying to pace myself with spending, so am trying to hold off buying the uniseals to make the filters.

Or G2N you could be totally crazy and have no AP and have something like this...

show off...

I wish!

My recollection about Washington was that there was no shortage of trees. We usually called in a lumberjack, and he paid US to remove trees. I would then plant some nice deciduous fruit trees in it's place. In the winter they let all the light and warmth in. In summer they provide nice shade. If you keep them nicely trimmed, stour solar can go in nicely too. About the painting, a good plastic drop cloth should do the trick. Or wall paper. I am fond of the wall murals myself. In my last place I put one up in my daughters room. The only reason I haven't put one up here is that there are other things I would rather spend my money on... Plus the previous owner was an artist, and we like what he did with the walls.

There is water in my tank.

I am still not used to the mammothness of this tank. Hubs took a picture of me standing on my tippytoes to manage the water flowing into it. And I am freakishly tall for a woman (tall enough to "posh a llama," as DrLuke puts it, standing flatfooted).

It's a big tank.

Yeah, I'm gonna need to slow down on the spending, myself...sometimes I wish my hubs would say "no" to me once in a while, so I wouldn't have to work so hard on having self-control! Thankfully my tank came with a wet/dry sump/filtration system, which apparently is all the filter I need, or so the aquarium store guy said. So mainly I just need enough plants to keep the water balanced, for now. And then later I'll get bit by the fish bug...unless I do like BW was saying, and use it for growing fingerlings for my IBC!

Oh, MAN that's gorgeous. But strangely enough, it doesn't have the "I wanna do THAT!" pull on me the way aquaponics and freshwater planted tanks seem to. It's more of an "I wanna find one of those and sit in front of it and stare at it for six hours and then go away and let somebody else manage its upkeep" kind of effect.

The thing with our trees is that they shade the house so nicely it feels air conditioned in the summer even though it isn't. If we took them down to put up solar panels, we'd probably have to use 'way more electricity keeping things cool. Also, our yard wouldn't feel nearly as awesomely peaceful and serene as it does with all the towering Douglas firs.


The problem is the aquarium is about 2 inches from the wall, which makes it impossible to paint the part behind it without moving it, which is not going to happen. I guess I could paint around it...then it would just look like it had a backing the color of the old paint.

I remember I really liked your wall murals. I can't remember what they looked like, at the moment, but I remember noticing and admiring them.