Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Howdy - I registered here a while back but just now reading more. We are researching so we can get an AP system going. We love the idea! We are getting ready to build a large enclosed porch on the east side of our house where we have a patio door. The porch will be 12' wide and somewhere around 20' long. There will be big windows on the south and east side. We want to set up the system on this porch (will be raised up off of the ground about 2' or so). My main question right now is this - we have a 1,000 gallon fiberglass tank that came out of a new greenhouse (meant to be put in the ground) - never used but we've had it sitting out in our garden for close to 30 years (don't ask). LOL! I was hoping to set up a drip irrigation system using it but it never happened and now I'm liking the AP idea for growing stuff anyway. Garden is going to weeds. I'm wondering if the fiberglass is a problem for fish - we would put the fish in this tank (about 6' long and 5' tall - 4' wide). We would dig a hole in the ground to drop the tank so it's not so tall inside the porch. One foot? Two foot? Don't know yet. How many fish would a tank like this need? We have a son with five kids and one on the way so raising fish for the family to eat is what we are looking at. Does the fiberglass hurt fish or is it ok to use this tank for that? Thanks -

I also need to add that we have some other tanks as well that we can use. A couple of them are the large Rubbermaid stock tanks and a couple are galvinized metal stock tanks. We used these for watering livestock but we can use them now for the AP/fish tanks or whatever we need them for. Would they be better for putting fish in instead of the big fiberglass tank? Sure would like to utilize that big tank if possible...

A fibreglass fish tank would be O.K, but the galvinized metal stock tanks won't be. They will leach nasty stuff into the water and you fish wont appreciate it.
If you a use a liner of some sort you may be able to use the galvinized metal stock tanks as grow beds.

Well, my hubby just informed me that the galvanized tanks have all rusted through and can't be used anyway so that takes care of that. The Rubbermaids were used in a friend's commercial Angel fish operation before we bought them from her. Would the fish do better in a smaller tank that's not so deep as the 1,000 gallon tank is? Thanks for the reply on the fiberglass, too.

I don't see the depth being a issue as long as you can catch them and you can get the solids off the bottom.

My husband installed a drainpipe at the bottom on one end (not IN the bottom) as the idea was to let the water for the drip lines come out that way. It also has allowed us to keep the tank from just filling up with water while it's been sitting out in the garden. So that might be a way to help get stuff off of the bottom of the tank, yes? Or should that be our line to the GB's with a filter in between to catch the big stuff? I want to keep this as simple as possible though...thank you for your replies, Lyndon. When we get this going, I'll see if my niece can take pictures for us. But we don't want to be putting a big hole in our new porch floor (treated plywood) if this big tank wouldn't work for fish so we needed to know about that first.

I am located in NE Arkansas and also starting a system. From what I have read, you can use the fiberglass tank for the fish. The opening near the bottom is good so you can circulate the water to your plants. You can cut the fiberglass tank to fit if you want to do so (top could be your plant tank). The fish will need about one cubic foot of water per fully grown fish or about two gallons each depending upon the type of fish you decide to raise. Because you have grandchildren, I would recommend putting in an acrylic window in the tank so the children can watch the fish. There is a video showing both the cutting and putting in the window.

Liberty, you should check the tank. 30 years in the sun may have caused the tank to weaken due to UV rays. Fill it up with water and see if it holds.

Glad to meet another Arkansas person - we are south of Hot Springs. Yes, we will make sure the tank is still holding water ok before we use it. We're going to put up a couple of the IBC systems first so we can learn with something smaller. If the fiberglass tank isn't useable, we'll just use the IBC's instead. We have access to free ones.

Ok, I told my husband about needing to check the fiberglass tank to see if it's still able to hold water ok. He said, If it leaks, we'll put a liner inside of it so we can still use it. It's going to be strongly supported with plywood on the outside around the tank and set down into the porch floor (also plywood) on the ground so the floor surrounding it will also support it. If it leaks, the water will run to the ground, not on the porch floor. Now we have to figure out how to make a hole in the liner for the drain pipe on the one end where it won't leak there...

We are planning on starting with an IBC set up to begin with and learn on before we set up the bigger tank, etc. We want to grow plants first without fish and do some learning before we bring in live animals into the picture. I'm wondering about manure tea sprays. I know it won't hurt anything to use them while there's no fish but would they hurt the fish once we get them? We just spray on the foliage once in a while, not on the "dirt"/gravel. Thoughts?