Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Can someone help me as I want to start my own aquaponics system in Darwin NT. I have acquired blue barrels for growing the vegies and keeping the fish, however the barrels have had acid in them. I believe that if I wash them out and fill them with water and allow algae to grow it should be ok for aquaponics. Is this correct, as I do not what to poison the fish or my family. The reason I have used these barrels is because they are cheap and I can not get any food safe barrels in Darwin unless they are transported in.

I would say yes. Acid tends to dilute well and rinse freely. The worst it could do is keep your pH low for a little while.
What kind of acid exactly, just so we can make sure there'll be nothing else nasty in there.

My blue barrels all had Hydrochloric Acid in them:



The one to be very careful of is Nitric Acid. If possible avoid barrels that contained it.

yeah rinse them out and scrub with bicarb soda to neutralise any acid.

if you want to wait and be patient fill them up and leave them in sun for a few weeks to get algal boom as you mentioned.

also, what fish species you looking at?

Barra?
Any others?

Can you tell us what kind of acid they had in them? Many acids are fine (vinegar, citric acid, probably don't even need to wash out too well for food grade acids) but there are a few that you should avoid and perhaps a couple that could kill you before you manage to rinse the barrel let alone have a chance to test it on fish.

I can get my hands on some vinegar drums if you are interested. I am in Darwin, were are you located.

Moonie