Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm looking at building an IBC system, in my strange Canadian climate.
I was going to put the fish tank in the garage to help keep it warm in the winter, with 3 grow-beds just outside the garage along with the sump. It's going to be a flood and drain system using auto-siphons.
Over the course of the summer I would like to build a green house around the grow-beds to help keep them warmer in the winter.
I am going to be keeping rainbow trout because of the cold winter's. I was originally thinking of having 100 but was advised to cut it down, so now I'm thinking about 50.
Temperatures here range from -45C (-49F) in the winter to 36C (97F) in the summer.
If I don't get the greenhouse built then I'm going to install grow-beds and lights into the garage.

I'm looking for input or suggestions.

with 50 trout, how large do you plan on growing them?
base the load on the amount of filtration you have (or design your filtration around how many fish you want)
a "common sense" approach is 25lbs of grown out fish for every 100 gallons of gb volume..
for 50 2lb trout, you should have at least 400 gallons of growbed, and lots of aeration..and probably extra filtration since trout like very clean water
you might want to start with a different fish to monitor your water temps for a full year, see what people are growing in ponds near you... trout will struggle if the water gets warm, and growbeds will warm up your water quick..you probably do have a long enough season to grow out trout for 8 or 9 months, year round may be difficult to keep the water cool enough

+1 and you'll want a battery backup or generator backup for air in case the power goes out.

I'm not that concerned about power outages here.

I could easly add another grow bed to help with the filtration.

Im not a Greenhouse AP expert, and I'm sure plenty of ppl run flood and drain in greenhouses, but I did read that some guys (Dave Donley and zsazsa?) had issues with condensation in their greenhouses with flood and drain. Switching to constant flood solved the issues.

Just a heads up, check zsazsa thread for the true facts/details. Dont take my word for it.

Thanks I'll check that out. I shouldn't be too much of a problem here, it's very arid.