Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

After moving several times the last few years I'm finally settled and plans have started for my v3 system. Going to build a 24'x24' greenhouse with the walls and roof done in Solexx greenhouse cover except the rear north facing wall. That wall will have a 36" entry door and 2 garage doors, the idea of the garage doors is so I can place the tanks closer to the wall so they take up less space and if I need access to the backs for any reason can open the doors.

Fish tanks will be either 2x round tanks or 2x 330 gallon IBCs, to be determined.
1x 85 gallon cone tank for a radial flow settler/filter.
1x 85 gallon cone tank for a mineralization tank similar to the one in Web4Deb's dome.
1x 200 gallon tank with K1 or other biomedia MBBF
1x 100 gallon buried tank for a sump

My area is too warm for trout but too cold for tilapia and I can't afford to heat the water that much so my plan with this much filtration is I can run it as just RAS over winter without the need of the growbeds since they will lose a lot of heat. Will have a mix of bluegill and channel cats with some goldfish just for fun lol. Since I have pumps laying around anyway I'm most likely going to do a dual-pump system with one recirculating from the sump to FT and the other doing sump to GBs as part of the winter design, keeps it simple compared to adding a bunch of valves to do the same.

So far nothing has been built yet, in talks with a company to build the greenhouse and I imagine it will be a somewhat slow process.

Mostly finalized the plan and the concrete slab has been poured with the drain lines (red) buried underneath.

The square around the sump is a temporary 3'x3' hole left in the slab until my sump tank gets here and I can get it dug in. Then I'll handmix some concrete to fill it in around the tank.

Concrete is in place
330 gal IBC fish tanks have arrived as well.

woo hoo. I'll be the first to tag in for the excitement. But it looks like your IBC tanks need some work to make them round like the plan calls for =) oh maybe the second one they went square/rectangular.

Things are still happening, the greenhouse walls/roof are finally done. I doubt I'll have it up and running in time for the full season this year though but at least should get some lettuce and maybe some other short season things.

Greenhouse looks fantastic

Get a few plants in containers while your building

looking good! Like Terra said, start stuff in dirt... once you get the AP running clean the roots off and toss them in so you already have a head start! You should be able to get things going and keep lettuce growing through winter I would imagine... I have lots of lettuce growing in my greenhouse through winter with just a little supplemental heat, being quite a bit farther south than me you should get more sun in the winter which should keep things growing better.

After way too long things are finally moving in the green house. Getting vents installed, the garage doors are installed, sump tank is in the ground and filling around it with sand; still have to attach to the return from the growbeds and overflow. The board on the wall is 2x 3/4" treated plywood glued and screwed together, it's where I'll be mounting electrical boxes and putting on shelves for air pumps and such.

Very cool. Love the setup so far.

That looks amazing. Good work.

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Yep nice green house alright, well done.
I have my pipes buried also and had tree roots get in. They blocked up the drain, 90mm, it was a pain to dig up, clear, repair and add access ports for future. Fortunately it wasn’t covered in concrete.
If you can, add access to clear the buried pipes not only for roots but also sediment build up if required.

Didn't think about roots, there aren't any big trees close so *hopefully* they'll be safe. The piping is graded down to the sump tank so if sediment does build up should be able to flush it out.

Still plugging away here, all the electrical work is done. The blank box is an extra 240V 30 amp circuit in case I end up needing to heat the water in winter. The tan box is a fan controller/thermostat for the 24 in / 60cm exhaust fan.

Built the tables for the media beds, each plastic bed is ~4x8 feet (1.2m x 2.4m). They are a bit odd in that you are only supposed to fill them about 2/3rds full (12 in / 30cm), but knock on wood I guess I don't have to worry about them overflowing lol.

Cool, when you are done there can you come and build me one! How deep are the beds?

The blue beds are 18 inches deep but you are only supposed to fill them to 12 inches deep for them to be self supporting; they'll be media beds and the expanded slate for them should be here Monday. I should be able to start plumbing the beds tomorrow but still waiting on a few parts to finish them. They seem nice and strong, so far the only thing I don't like is even after a few weeks they still don't lie flat; I'm going to put some rubber couplers in the horizontal legs of the drain lines to give them some flexibility since I'm sure all the gravel is going to help them lay flat for sure

The smaller gray ones are sheep feeders and 12" deep, going to be DWC in those.