Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well it's been a long time coming but finally a breakthrough...
Purchased two IBC's to add to the 200L barrel I already had and BAM!
I've got the start of my system...
More to follow.

So the original plan was a simple chift pist system with one ibc chopped into a fish tank and a growbed and a blue barrel as a sump.
Well I bought two IBC's didn't I (bitten by the expansion bug already)!!
The blue barrel is too small for the sump now (at least on its own) so I'm thinking I might have to get another barrel or two and plumb them together to sort that issue out or another ibc
So the plan is, because we have a mainly sloping block, to put the ft on the flat and the gb and sump on the slope. Put the pump in the sump (lowest point) and pump up to the ft which will overflow via a slo down to the gb and then back to the sump via a standpipe.
To achieve this I'll have to have water constantly sitting in the pipe from the ft to the gb.
Is this likely to cause issues??

Short answer: nope!

Longer answer: as long as the pipe is straight and doesn't have any dips that could collect solids, nope!

So after some stupid weather, 40 degrees then 40mm of rain, I made some progress on the build.
Cut one ibc in half top to bottom for my two growbeds and gave them a rough clean with the pressure cleaner. These ibc's used to hold a clay type substance so they may take a few washes.
Then cut the ibc cage and screwed the two halves together end to end to form the base of my growbeds.
Also managed to get the hole cut in the top of the second ibc which will become my fish tank.

Looking good,
only comment you will need some sort of cover over the fish tank to stop leaves etc flying in,

please as a beginner stay with goldies for at least a year, that way they tolerate a lot of our 'mistakes', they are real warriors. then when stage two comes and your producing quality vegies the dear beloved will be more tolerant in spending money..

There will be a cover over the fish tank as it will sit quite close to a gum tree and the leaves are a serious pain.
Solid advice on the goldfish, from my reading it seems they are fairly well bullet proof! I was planning to run with them as the missus doesn't really like eating fish that much.
One question I do have, and I might be jumping the gun here as my system isn't even built, is how many gold fish to put in an ibc? I know the ratios for growing out fish (weight to wet media etc.) but I have no idea how big goldfish get

Given decent swimming room, goldfish get big! I've got four in my system now that are about 20cm long (not counting their tails) and very heavy in the body - those were in a small garden pond for a few years. I've also got several that were around 5cm when I bought them early last year and are now closer to 15cm.

'Fancy' goldfish (the ones with weird body shapes and elaborate tails) don't grow as big or as fast as 'plain' goldfish (comets, shubunkins etc), but also aren't nearly as hardy. I'd stock according to normal grow-out rates and see how your fish go.

10-15 is very comfortable for medium-large sized GF and works for both the veg and the fish.
You can go 20 with small shop brought fish quite easily.

you can go higher with small fish but as Mel notes that requires you to have a plan as they start getting larger.


the main thing with goldfish is what you feed them. Many goldfish & aquarium foods are not very good for AP.
You really want slow sinking pellets with around 30-35% protein.

Our first system was Chift Pist with IBC as fish tank, half IBC as sump and 4 half IBCs as growbeds. We dumped 40 cheap goldies in and lost 1 in 2.5 years.
Your local aqurium shop is the best get the plain runts.

Given that you're starting with two growbeds and Tonzz had four, half the number of fish he had would be a logical starting point... in other words, 20, like Darren suggested. If you get the bronzy-green uncoloured 'feeder' goldfish from a pet store you'll find that a lot of them will develop pretty colours as they grow, so you get the same result as buying the more expensive ones.

Look to be honest 30 small ones would be fine, but you need a plan for later as they get bigger, and is a more spectacular backstroke session if something starts going wrong or you don't have your system set up very well..... 15-20 adult fish is a conservatively stocked system that ultimately matches a 2 grow bed volume.

Problem is for every story like Tonzz there is another where higher stocking in a new system did not end up so well. Sometimes better to start with a few less fish and add some more as things progress - can end up cheaper that way....
plus you can always add something else other than GF 6 months or so down the track.

If you go coloureds you can probably on-sell them on gumtree and make some refund money - medium-large GF's go for $5 easily and probably get away with 3 for $20. Otherwise go the uncoloured (black/bronze ones) as Mel suggests.

As Mel said earlier - Comets (normal fish tails) tend to be hardier and have less health issues than fantails and fat-bodied varieties.

[edit] may be worth grabbing a couple of yabbies as well. That young offsider fella looks as though he will enjoy feeding the fish.... yabbies will polish up worst of the crud on the bottom of the tank and the odd dead fish if it doesn't float and you miss it. Don't bother getting more than a couple as they will simply eat each other.

Plain, uncoloured and cheap (who knows maybe even free) goldfish it is
The eventual plan is trout, another tank and multiple new growbeds but again I'm getting ahead of myself!
First build system then expand/improve

Got me a question for any and all that wanna answer, what do you use for your standpipe exiting your growbeds? Uni seal? Bulkhead fittings? Tell me your secrets

I use bulkhead fittings, but plenty of people use uniseals or plumbing fixtures and they work just fine. I think a lot of the variation in choice here isn't based so much on what works better, but on what you can source easily at good prices and you're comfortable with. Me, I went with the bulkheads because I could find them in the sizes I wanted easily and ~reasonably~ cheaply, I didn't have drill bits or hole saws that would cut openings at the sizes I needed for plumbing fixtures and didn't trust my ability to get them precise enough (plumbing fixtures have way less tolerance for different-sized holes than bulkhead fittings with nice wide flanges have), and at the time I didn't know where to get uniseals.

A year?
He's not a toddler. I'm sure most beginners can manage with a few more useful fish than goldies.