Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am gearing up to start my first real system. I have a couple questions I would like to ask if you all dont mind.

I have access to a 500 Gal tank. (free). So of course I am going to use it. I am planing on useing grow beds that are no less then 8 inchs deep. Given that the tank is 500 Gals what would or should the square feet of the grow beds be to be able to keep up with that much water. (space is not a problem).
I have done a search on the site here and have found that stocking density should be around 3kg/100liter ( I will convert that later to pounds/gal). I think that if all agree with this that will be where I will strive to get to.

I plan on a flood and drain system and the beds filled with gravel. It will be inside a green house, in Southern Oregon. The fish will more then likly be gold fish tell I can find a source for trout. I would like to use tilipia but I have not found a site with either the information or a number that I can call to see if that fish is legal in Oregon.
I look forward to hearing from you all..Thank you so much for the help.

Shawn

Welcome Shawn. I'm in SW Washington and it's great to have another system going into the "neighborhood". We are just about finished with setting ours up... will be planting this week and then working on cycling the system. The basic ratio is 1 pound of fish to 2 gallons of fish tank to 4 gallons of grow bed. The 4 gallons of grow bed is the overall volume including media and water.

I do know there is a person in the Portland area who is working on getting a license for tilapia and is being challenged. I'll let you know if I see anything from him indicating success on that front. I called the Fish and Wildlife people here and they said tilapia is not normally allowed but that they wouldn't stop me since it's a small home setup. The challenge is to get some tilapia... we'll see.

Thank you for your reply. I am curious what kind of fish have you stocked with..Or rather are you going to stock with. I am Medford Oregon so I am guessing that I can get trout, just a matter of finding a source that will sale me some..

Again thank you for the reply
Shawn

You lucky person

The rule of thumb is to use twice the volume of gravel to process the wastes from the amount of fish that can live in a given volume of water (not many people on the forum are hitting that ratio though). So by that ratio you would want 1000 gallons of gravel. This assumes stocking to the max so you can get by with less if you aren't stocking so heavy.

Google can convert units for you - I use it all the time, so if you wanted to know how many square feet was 1000 gallons, try Googling:

"1000 gallons to cubic feet"

Google says that is 133 cubic feet.

12 / 8

Google: 1.5

133 * 1.5

Google: 199.5, so you would need about 200 square feet of 8" deep gravel to give you 1000 gallons of gravel. You can convert to cubic yards for ordering a load too.

square root of 200

Google: 14, so you want about 14' on a side if you could make it a big square.

(I use Google all the time for converting from Imperial to metric and celsius fahrenheit and vice versa)

HTH!

Another great conversion tool is a file called convert.exe. There is a zip of this program in the forum at:

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... c.php?t=29

I think it is the 5th post down. I have used it extensively... have it on my desktop for easy reference.

We are in Vancouver. We will start with goldfish to finish cycling and then look for tilapia. I read a post here that you can often find tilapia at tropical fish stores sold as nile perch or nile cichlids. We are going to go on a field trip into Portland one of these days and see what we can find. We'll be persistent until we find some tilapia. From everything I've read, that's what we'd like to grow.

hey Shawn, you're back again

The ratio is 1:2. So for 500 gallons of water you can start with 1000 gallons of gravel. You can also calculate you fish load and feeding load then find the amount of surface area you need to process the ammonia.

Ya I have gone full circle.

From oregon to chicago to alabama back to oregon.

Who would have ever thought that the airline industry was such a relocating machine..sigh

Ahh well Oregon is home.!!

And its good to be home.

Thank you all for the info..This forum is great.

Shawn

OO, my wife and I are from Grants Pass. We are living in Kentucky these days, and will most likely be here until we die, but we bath have family back in the Rogue Valley.