Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Welcome to my first system! I will be posting updates with pictures as often as I can and as often as something happens. I look forward to you guys following with me on this journey and sharing tips and pointers along the way!

My System
--- 8'x8'x3' fish tank
--- 20 half barrels as GB's
--- room for expansion


!The Before!

Excavation for the pond we dug a foot deep.


Began construction of pond/FT wall

leveled ground a bit and rebuilt the wall xD

Welcome to the forum!

I always love a big build.

I think you'll find that 40 half barrels are going to cost you a fortune in plumbing fittings (ball valves, uniseals, elbows, etc). You're far better off building the equivalent in long wooden beds, and lining with pond liner. It'll also be easier to manage and trouble shoot problems with siphons, and it'll have more media space and allow for more fish.

But it's your call. I look forward to it coming together.

Thank you for the welcome and for the heads up, Colum Black-Byron.

Although, it's only 20 half barrels (10 full barrels cut in half), but I'm sure that'll still set me back a pretty penny. I already have those set up and I'm just trying to upload the pics now in progression. But I will diffidently remember your advise for future expansions.

At the moment I am complete with the structural build. All that is left is the plumbing and to put the pond liner in the pond. For the plumping I'm still trying to work out how I can arrange it so that I use the least amount of "special pieces." Hopefully once you see the final picture of what I have so far you could help me to see if what I have in mind will work.

Thanks again, and I hope you continue to check in!

Finished the pond and got the first row of barrels set.

Different angle with my dog and her new favorite spot to relax especially while I'm working out there.

And then we got the second row in place!

And shortly after the first 2 rows, rows 3 and 4 fell into place. I have the barrels turned upside down so they don't collect water and attract more mosquitoes than there already are down here.




And now we are all caught up to date as of 7/31/14. My plans for piping is to have it all running down the back side, closer to the fence. I'll have a pipe that goes up and out of the pond, and down the side and branches out to each row. For my return I was planning on having a larger pipe on that same side but below the other pipe running along the fence, back to the pond. The barrels will drain individually into a pipe below them running across the row into the larger pipe. I realize this may be a bit hard to picture so I will try to get a drawing or diagram up soon.

Nice.

Couln't you link the barrels together and have a common siphon? Say, join 5 together and have one with the standpipe/siphon. Would only need to tune 5 siphons.

Another plumbing saver might be barrels end to end and connect with a common threaded joiner.

Ditto on the " Love big builds " comment just the same.

Welcome. Looking good. Do you know what the capacity of the FT will be?

are you going to fill/mortar the blocks for the FT together?

There will be a fair bit of pressure on the walls.

The blocks have sand in them right now. So I'm hoping that will do the job.



I think I saw somewhere that a good ratio is 1 pound of fish for ever 1 to 2 gallons of water. So by that standard I think it would be like 700 lbs of fish on the safer side.



Thank you Samorta and Gregted, I think switching the positions of the barrels may be a little more difficult, but how could I link them together to one syphon the way they stand right now?

The ratio will be 500 grams (harvest size) to 25 litres of filtration or 18 ounces per 6.5 gallons (roughly).

Welcome to the forum, great to see a new members thread up and running so soon with pictures.


I would do more than hope. With only sand I'd be praying as well.

There are some block systems that can go three courses high with just sand or gravel fill but they are designed to be able to do that job. Those blocks look like simple besser blocks I think you might want to reinforce them.

Maybe add some stakes and a cap board around the edge to hold them in place.

Suarteponics

You may find you chosen height may be too high. I use half barrels just like you plan. I have them on two blocks; one laying horizontal, and one vertical on top of the horizon block. We have found it to be a perfect height. No need to bend over and no need for a step stool to get to the top of growth. Just my 2 cents.

I like you pond setup.....May want to reinforce it though.

I setup my fish tank to suit me. I've recently installed a step so Sarah can look after the fish more easily. Although now she doesn't have a baby bump she should be able to look into the tank more easily.