Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey guy and gals,

I just came into possession of a very large water tank, and I have decided to build my Green house around this tank. Ill get pictures up as soon as I get it home.

My questions I have so far:

The entire Tank Height is going to be roughly 6ft

The tank Diameter is roughly 8ft

I plan to cut the tank top off at 5ft, and fill it to about 4 ft 6in

So by my math the total gallons of water in the FT will be 1690 gallons give or take a few.

By the same math My grow bed will hold 376 gallons of water, which taking 30% off of the volume for grow media will give me roughly 263 gallon of water and how ever much media that will be.

What would be the best way to plumb this system?

Roughly How many channel cats can I stock in this tank once cycled?

I have only ever dealt with IBC totes so this is new territory from me. I have some serious pumps here at the house, so Moving alot of water is not my biggest issue,

Your media volume is more relevant than your FT volume.

Not sure about channel cats but, unless you have additional filtration, the rule of thumb is about 20 to 30 L of wet media for every plate sized fish you want to grow.

I'm not much good with imperial but I think that's about 40 fish in your case.

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I was thinking about that today. I really want to maximize the usage of this tank. I can grow some serious veggies with this much water. I just need the grow bed space.

I can get IBC totes pretty cheaply, does anyone know the volume of of one of those, if it is cut length wise or vertically? I know it is substantially larger that if I just cut the top and bottom off.

My thinking on plumbing right now is , SLO into a 275 IBC Sump that i put in the ground. Past that, until I figure out how Im going to position the Grow beds im stuck.

With a tank that size, I would add some deep water culture and nutrient film transfer components along with the media beds to maximize both use of space and full potential of system.

I Have a 9ft length of 6in PVC, that I intend to Cut holes and install net pots in for my strawberries. I dont know if Ill have time to get a DWC run up this summer or not, but it is in the plans. Right now, I have two IBC tops, I am picking up another IBC on Saturday that ill cut vertically and make two more beds out of it, and I have 5 BLue 55g Barrels that Im going to cut in half. I think that is about all im going to be able to put together right now. Because I still have to get my greenhouse put up lol.

Sounds like you've got some work ahead of you. Looking forward to seeing some pics of your progress.

To follow on South's comment about NFT--check out my NFT channels on my member's systems thread. I use plastic rain gutter down spouts. I use these for strawberries, lettuce, greens--not for larger, longer growing plants like tomato, cucumber, etc.

Awesome, will do! THe lettuce results I have seen are impressive. I am completely excited about being able to grow veggies year round this time around.

I like the idea of the rectangular pipes better then the round ones. Less chance of leaking about the bottom of the hole cut outs. As far as lettuce, my goldfish are now hooked on it and munching down as many seedlings I am willing to part with. Lettuce seed here is much cheaper then fish food so I can grow it just for them. It is so funny to watch them take it in by the root and munch it to the leaves. It is as long as they are to start with.

That is awesome. Cant get my cats to eat veggies.

Just feed the veggie laden fish to the cat.

I see what you did there!

If you go only NFT the only media is in the net cups so you might need a real lot of them to suck up the ammonia and nitrites. Or go with one fish. Weight up a net cup of media and multiply it by the amount of holes. It is not very much to create the cycles with. I guess you could always fill the pipe with media and pray not to have a blockage or have many drains. Add a drain every foot or so. Only run it where you can afford an overflow. I would not do it in the house. I constantly read about them getting root bound and filling up with water. So people need to pull the cups and trim the roots or live with the blockage. I would still like to do at least one run on our balcony at some stage. Just to learn from it. I have a meter long one I made a month ago just waiting its turn.

This is similar to what i am thinking i want to build. Ill plumb it out of the sump, and return it to the FT.

I might be tempted to assemble it with just a press fit and see what happens to the water flow. If 1 gets 90% and 8 gets nothing then add a ball valve in front of each run to balance the flow