Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hi there, ours names our jason and dana. we have been reading and studying about aquaponics for quite a while... we are going all in,, we have studied the manual from BA .. so here are the ideas wehave already dug a 6000 litre tank and are only filling it up to 4000 liters for our trial start. also we are putting together a 10x24 greenhouse.. our problems are unique for our climate as it freezes here and solid for the winter, so our system will only run from april till nov.. we will stock rainbow trout approx 50-70 to start and 150-200 for year two and up to 5 4x8 growbeds with some nft racks for herbs... here are some pic of our building site and hole in the ground..

You should look into Passive solar greenhouses. There is no reason why you can only grow in the summer. A well built passive solar greenhouse will keep your plants and fish warm all winter. In fact aquaponics works perfectly for passive solar greenhouses because the water in the fish tanks and grow beds store heat during the day and relece heat during the night.

here my son is questioning his fathers sanity

the fish tank will be 8x6 and 4 feet into the ground with 2 feet above the ground with a nice slope in the bottom for the solids to be lifted up by the sump.. it will be lined with pond liner ..

Looks great - I will love seeing updates as this grows

here is what digging thru 100 hundred years of backyard can yield.. one bucket of bones .. we're not sure what animal. i gettin cold here so almost done working in the backyard,, next year jg

looks human to me. Or may be bigfoot. You may have found the missing link there.

Nah, I heard Link moved to Vancouver. Those are someone else's bones. *grin*

And questioning parental sanity is why kids exist.

Actually Hydro... I think it's the other way around...

The existance of kids... is a questioning of parental sanity...

For hole in the ground pond liner tanks, be ware that the sides can cave in if not sloped outward if the water level ever gets low in the tank. As in make hard sides down at least as far as the low water mark. My big in ground tank makes be a little nervous because I did make the sides rather straight up and down and when the water level is low, if the ground is wet, there is risk that it could cave in. I try to keep the water level quite high in that tank most of the time so I don't have that danger.

Now as far as shutting down the system for the winter. Hum, perhaps you want to read some other cold climate greenhouse threads.
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=480
It could be a challenge to keep things from freezing where you are but I bed you could keep the system running for just a little more than what you said. I expect you could keep it running till almost xmas (though you would probably have harvested the fish in November and just be cycling the water to use up nutrients while growing cold loving plants like kale and broccoli.) Then you would probably want to get the water flowing again as soon as the water starts melting in the greenhouse so you can fishless cycle the bio-filter back up before adding more fish again in April.

Good Luck with it all!!!!!!!

well it finally got warm enough here to commence work .. we have the fish tank dug and the liner waiting to go in .. the geenhouse went up yestrday and will post pic when i am done .. we have three grow beds 4x8 and we have a goal of the end of march for the water strtng to flow thru our spider valve .. the trout are on order 5-6 inch .. about 70 of them and we will only fill the tank 1/2 full for starts. to cycle the system we are hoping a bottle of bene bact. will accel the process as well as 100 feeder goldfish.. plants to go in by may 1st.... pics to follow jason

Welcome Jason & Dana!

Q: How low can trout go temp-wise? Are they OK as long as they're not swimming in ice?

DD,

I've caught hungry trout in the spring in Wyoming in the open running bits of water between ice and snow, so they can certainly tolerate 32degF (0degC) (as long as it is the liquid phase!).

Thanks HP, that's what I thought. Other than the biofilter slowing down to a crawl/stalling the trout should be fine in the coldest water. Just don't feed them much when it is that cold?

I would assume that it is the usual thing: what they finish in five minutes. I also assume that would be very little: like catfish at 50degF or tilapia at 60.