Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

HI all,

My first system (link in signature) was a moderate success. I had a few plants really do well, but it was such a small system that I wasn't really able to do much experimenting.

It was a CHIFT PIST system, and is probably the way I will go again in the future.

Some background on my current situation, and longer term plans;

I am currently renting and unwilling to create another small system so am looking at this purely on paper, until I move into my forever home.

My forever home will be the one I am currently saving up for, and will consist of a couple of converted shipping containers, with the IBC aquaponics system providing most of my fresh fruit and veges.

My diet will be supplemented with fresh eggs from chickens, and some dairy from either a cow or a goat (to be determined). I don't eat very much meat so this is not really a consideration, and I can pop into town for that sort of thing, and for other things that I can't provide for myself.

I plan to be living off-grid, with solar, so my total electrical requirements (including my IBC system) will dictate to a large degree how much solar I will install.

There will be a few stages to go through before I am able to finally/fully make the move, and part of that will be the setup of the containers, along with water catchment, so I am hoping to mostly live off the land when it comes to that, and hopefully have enough water to not only fill my system, but provide me with drinking water etc as well.

Ideally I am looking at around a 5 year planning/setup stage before being able to move in.

Onto my current plan.

A while ago, when I first started looking into aquaponics and was building/researching my first system, there wasn't much talk of solids filtration, however there seems to be more focus on that lately. This could simply be because the systems I have looked at lately (dasboot's system in the land of smiles in particular has been an inspiration).

Anyway, I will leave you here with an image of my plan that I have in my head for a while.

It includes a 1000lt fish tank (1 x IBC), that SLO's into the grow beds (4 x 500lt = 2 IBC cut in half), those then drain into a bio-sump of 1000lt (1 x IBC), which then pumps into a series of DWC tanks (4 x 500lt = 2 x IBC cut in half), which in turn overflows back into the fish tank to begin again.

6 IBC in total.

Comments, questions, feedback and suggestions all welcome, but in particular I am looking for information about ratios, and if I should look at adding some solids filtration/bio digester before I get to the first grow beds (I also plan on having some fruit trees, so can either include them in the loop while they sit in barrels, or I can dump the gathered solids directly to them).



Thanks for your time

-francis

Sick,

If you like Dasboot's system, you will have noticed that he has decided to go all DWC with solids removal to an offline MT. It seems that several of the posters after doing a lot of experiments have decided this is the avenue they wish to travel also. Besides that unless you get you IBCs really cheap it will probably be cheaper to build 1 long GB, and 1 long DWC, with the standard frame and pond liner. If you so choose to do GBs. It will simplify your plumbing saving money and aggravation.

Hi florida,

I did notice that DB is planning a switch over to only run DWC. I'm following his thread with great interest!

I agree with your comment about fewer, larger beds and may end up going that way.

-francis