Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone! I am officially obsessed with the idea of feeding my family from what I can grow in my back yard and it seems like aquaponics is going to give me the most bang for my buck.

Of course I'm also planning a traditional garden and some chickens as well to keep it diverse and give my two boys (4 and 6) an outlet for their boundless energy.

So in the NE corner of my yard I have a 300 gallon stock tank set in the ground covered by a rickety arbor. I figured it would be a good idea to use it as my fish tank since it's constantly shaded and in the ground. Easier to regulate the temperature??

I'm thinking i will build a greenhouse along the fence to the left of the tank area...about 15' away from the tank.

I have a million questions but what do you all think of this preliminary setup idea?

I am slightly concerned about the 15' distance between the tank and the grow bed. Will i need beefy pump to move water that distance? I'd like to eventually power the pump with solar.

I'm also concerned about the amount of sunlight the greenhouse will see. I live 50 miles south of Canada in Washington State and I have two giant fir trees in my back yard. I haven't measured how many hours of sunlight I can expect but if it's less than 4 per day should I even bother doing this?

Thanks for reading!

Hi Outfitter, welcome to AP. You will need advice from someone familiar with your climate to advise on suitability of your set up. Nice tank in the ground, but you would have to put a net or lid over it to keep out leaves and debris.

Are you thinking of a constant flood or a flood and drain set up? If it is the latter, you will need a sump tank, otherwise the level will fluctuate too much in your fish tank. You could even use the tank in the ground as the sump tank and add an insulated above ground fish tank next to it. You would pump from the sumptank to the fishtank, which then gravity feeds via a solids lift overflow to the growbeds in the greenhouse, which then drain via siphons to a common collection pipe back to the sump tank. You will need at least 4 hours sunlight for your plants, more is better.

Its a great thing being able to grow your own food. I keep telling my 5 pullets that they better start laying eggs soon before winter sets in. Meanwhile, they are supplying lots of lovely chook poo for the dirt garden, and they are such fun to watch. I had all of them peering in through the sliding door this morning wanting to come inside as its cold outside now...

Hello and welcome Outfitter.

Looks like you've got a good area to set things up.

I'm brand new to this as well and not too far from you, just a short drive and a ferry ride away.

How big is your greenhouse going to be?
What kind of fish were you going to grow?

Good luck with your plans.

Cheers,
Allan

Welcome to the forum

Thanks for the insight joc. I'm leaning toward a CHIFT PIST setup which, if i'm not mistaken, will require a taller or elevated fish tank for the gravity feed to the grow beds. I'm assuming flood and drain is better for the plants in the long run?

Allan, I would like to build a 3'x16' growbed so maybe a 6'x20' greenhouse when it's all said and done. Long and skinny.

As far as fish, trout of some kind would be my preference. I should be able to keep my water temp in the 60s°F or lower. Keeping the water oxygenated will be the trick.

What kind of fish are you going to use? If you are in Victoria our temperatures should be very similar. I'm in Mt Vernon, close to the foothills.

We had some sun today so I was able to measure how much light the greenhouse will get. Looks like i'll be trimming some trees.

Hi Outfitter, I have 25 rainbow trout at the moment in a 1000L IBC fishtank. We can grow out trout over the autumn, winter, spring. It gets too hot in summer and a string of hot days in the spring can lead to disaster - trout get stressed at over ~23C and die at ~26-27C. Some folks have insulated or inground fish tanks, chillers and turn off their GBs during hot days so can keep trout year round, but that is a bit much effort for me and I have towers which will make it very difficult to keep the water temperature down once the weather warms up. I just posted a bunch of new photos on my system thread yesterday, including one of the trout if you are interested.

Generally, if you circulate your fish tank volume once an hour and don't overstock, you should get enough oxygenation without additional aeration. Although it makes sense to have battery backup aeration in case of power failure or pump failure to keep your fish alive (still have to set mine up ).

The oft repeated rule of thumb thread and the IBC of Aquaponics are really good starting points for beginners.

Hey outfitter,

Sounds like a good built for a greenhouse, are you doing a prefab or building one from your own design?
I too am thinking of doing CHIFT PIST but I don't love the idea of a raised tank, especially since I already have a tank.

I'm hoping to raise trout too, but I'm not sure if there are any legal permits or anything like that since this wouldn't be for commercial use. There's a guy selling fingerlings for cheap, but I haven't asked if permits were needed.

If that doesn't work out for me, I'll just put my goldfish in there, or get some Koi.


I'll be setting up all 3 types of growbeds, but with F&D being the main grow beds.
From what I've noticed, lettuce or any leafy greens seem to do well with DWC or constant flow.


@joc
I've checked out your new photos, and the fish look great. It does seem like a lot of fish, especially when they're averaging 25cm. But that makes me happy to know that with a well established system I can raise the same amount of fish in the similar sized tank.
At what point do they start breeding, and when do you harvest (or do you)?

How do you like the vertical GB's? I like the way you've painted them. I was thinking of making a zipgrow version, but I'm not sure which system is better.

I still have to finish off reading your thread.

Angeles, I'm going to build my own. More fun that way.

I agree with you on the raised tank. I would much rather have it on the ground so maybe a CHOP or CHOP2 would work.

In Washington you have to have a permit for trout if you put them in a pond. Not sure about a stock rank.

Awesome, wish I went that route, but I didn't even know about aquaponics until after I bought the GH.

I have to admit, I don't really understand the differences of CHIFT PIST, CHOP or CHOP 2, as most of the designs I see have raised FT's and they all look the same to me. The key for me in CHIFT and 1 pump

I think with any system the solids filter and a sump should be in lower than the FT, but that could make for a lot of digging and could make access difficult. Either that or just get a pump that handles solids and go with my original idea.

After some research it looks like I'll need a permit. Here's what a snippet that I found.
What kind of pond should I have to meet the requirements?
A “Pond” means an artificially created pool of water that is a closed-system for holding rainbow trout, that is not connected to a natural watercourse, and from which rainbow trout can not escape to tidal or non-tidal waters if the pond overflows.

CHIFT PIST and CHOP are the same thing, Chop 2 allows dirty water to be pumped back into the FT. Which is why a lot of people do not like it. Your FT in your AP system would count as a pond.

Hi Outfitter!
I'm also in Skagit county! We just started the AP adventure in January, and built out a 250 gallon 'learning system' with homebrewed verticals. Since then, we build a greenhouse, and are (as of last weekend) running ~750 gallons of tanks with about 100 feet of verticals, with 80 more feet of verticals and another IBC tank to be added over the coming months. Currently, we're just running Koi & goldfish (with snails, clams & crawfish), but plan to replace them with pumpkin seed sunfish soon.

Best of luck!
dave

Math error! 40 feet of verts in the new greenhouse (60 feet on line currently in 2 different systems) with another 40 soon.

Hi outfitter, welcome
I´m also new on aquaponics, but i made a lot of research, so I think that i´m ready to start.
Your location climate looks like mine in winter, but anyway if I can get some I´ll try with tilapia and water heaters.
Do you made something new? I want to recomend you if not yet, that you maybe could use the buried tank as a sump, if you use CHIFT PIST i mean.
I don´t use imperial so I don´t know exactly how long your sistem will be, but if you want to use solar... you probably want to have it as near as posible due to your sunlight time and quality. it also make it cheaper if you have to pay the electricity.

I hope you had luck!!