Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone,

I recently discovered your website/forum and have become obsessed with aquaponics. I bought a house last year and had my first garden this summer. It quickly became 600 sq ft somehow and I loved it and grew some of the best vegetables I have ever eaten. I have been kind of bummed that in another month or so I'd have to wait till spring again to garden. So I am planning to buy an IBC and go with the basic setup in the IBC of Aquaponics handout in my basement. I plan on using T8 lights as I am cheap and my fiance rules the electric bill with an iron fist. I am planning on starting with the 1 grow bed made out of the IBC but know that won't be the case for long (I have a lot of 55 gal drums I use for my rain barrel setup). So I have a couple of questions for the forum members if you don't mind.

1) Any recommendations on pumps that have worked well for other forum members? I want something that is powerful enough to expand in the future.

2) Has anyone ever used Koi in their system before? I know already that my fiance will become attached to the fish and that eating them won't be an option so I thought Koi might be fun. I plan on making a Koi pond in the back yard next year anyway so this might work well to stock that. Also am I correct in assuming 10-12 fingerling Koi would be sufficient for the 250L starting growbed of this system?

3) Has anyone used T8 lights to great success in any basement sytems? Any suggestions for setup over the grow beds?

4) What are good starter plants for an indoor system? I was thinking of Swiss Chard and Spinach (mostly to justify this hobby to my fiance as a means of getting me to eat healthier).

Thanks for your help and all the wonderful info on this website,

Sean

Hi Sean and welcome to Backyard Aquaponics the IBC manual will keep you busy reading for a while and if you still have questions there are many forum members here happy yo help out. Be warned, this whole aquaponics thing can be very addictive, but we think it is a geat hobby and healthy too. We love to share your photos and progress so please contribute before, during and after.

G'day Sean, I'll second Faye - welcome to the forum.

Your questions;

1) Can't comment on what's available to you in the states, but something that can move around 1200 litres (guess that's about 300 gallons) woudl be adequate for a sinle IBC system.

2) Yep, plenty of people have used koi, and the number you propose should be fine, though you may have to reduce the number (or expand the system ) once they get big.

3) No idea, but there's a number of people on here using grow lights

4) Yeah, those and anything else that is leafy and green will get you started. Don't limit yourself to green leafies once you're up and running though - you'll find you can grow most things in there.

I live in St. Charles, good to see a member close. Welcome to the forum.

I did basi and red chilli peppers in my small system using a res turtle and about 20 feeder gold fish. and it is slowly getting there. It's only a 25ish gallon system.

So I got my IBC cut up pretty nice. Not bad for my first time using a angle grinder. I used a metal cutting disk for the grate and plastic liner. It worked well but definately flung its fair share of melting plastic bits at me while I cut. No biggie. The IBC I bought had gear oil in it and was supposed to have been previously steam cleaned. It might of been but the cleaning required to get all the residue off the sides has been quite substantial. I went through 1 and 1/3 bottles of industrial greaser and it took 4-5 applications and scrubs before I was satisfied. I found a place around here since then that sells cleaned totes previously containing Dr. Pepper for $75 since so that is what I will be doing next time. I plan on cleaning it with bleach and then acetic acid (vinegar) as suggest by more experienced forum members tomorrow and leaving it in the sun until Sunday. So hard to wait that long.

Other than that I have settled on Sunleaves Pioneer VI T-5 lights using grow bulbs for my lighting, I made a bell siphon, and I think I'm going to use some feeder goldfish to cycle. I am also hoping to score a couple gallons of water from an established system from a friend of a friend but I'm not counting on it. I will upload pictures once I have the system set up.

Quick question..... I was reading some of the posts about gluing pipes and am I correct in assuming I want to glue everything that isn't over the fish tank or grow bed and leave everything else "loose?"

Thanks again for everyone's help,

Sean

Craigslist ad? I think that was the one I was looking at.

I would glue anything that might leak or break loose. If it needs to be adjusted or taken apart to be moved you can use a barrel union, but if the grow bed is over the fish tank then a little leak might not be a issue.