Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am currently collecting prices on tanks and have two options
1) Stock tank, cheapish, about 600mm in depth
2) 'Proper' aquaculture tank, expensive, 900-1250 in depth.

My thoughts are whether the extra depth will be particularly beneficial, or if the extra surface area of the stock tanks will aid gas exchange. The tank will be kept indoors, in a low light environment so hopefully the fish will not be threatened by their shallower than standard home.

Any thoughts?

There is sort of a comprise, pretty cheap, 810mm deep.....but its 3000L, which would mean a lot of cod and therefore more grow beds than i have room for...unless i 'split' the tank into two areas using stainless mesh...which would also mean i can do a few more fish varieties....food for thought

I've been looking for a stock trough myself. There's a factory near here and I'm waiting for them to have some seconds. I think that they will be OK provided you put the right sort of fisk in there e.g bottom dwellers like cat fish or yabbies would be OK. You'd also have to consider water volume and potential heat loss with having a small volume and a large surface area, but being inside that wouldn't be such a problem.

yeah the heat loss could potentialy be a problem. I may end up partitioning off ¼ or more of the shed and insulating it to control it.

What sort of prices have you been quoted so far? Best prices I can find to far are 1350L/$500 delivered, 2000L/$600 delivered and 3000L/$690 delivered

I have had a similar question recently... What I have found out is, if you plan to use continuous flow to the grow beds then either tank would be great...but, if you want to use Flood and Drain you may have difficulties with the water depth as you pump out the required water to flood each grow bed. In the F&D case the aquaponic tank would be more suited.

If you plan on 1:1.5 ratio (water tank:grow beds) to achieve larger stocking densities you may need up to 40% water for the grow beds to fill (depends on medium selected). So in case of 1000L fish tank: 1500L grow bed, you may need up to 600L to flood the beds. If the fish tank was around 1.5m diaX0.6m high then this would only leave you with a depth of 0.23m left after flooding the beds. 1.2m diaX0.9m high would leave 0.36m in the bottom (these are all approximations)

Although, I just realised while the depth would be greater in the taller tank but obviously the volume would be the same regardless The only advantage is light (you've covered that) and the pump would stay submersed for longer in the event of evaporation or transpiration.

This is only what I understand so far and my be completely wrong, feel free to delete if I am misleading

Should have probably added more system info, as it will be a significant factor. My system will be continuous flow and the pump ill use is an external centrifugal, up to 300lpm (Im paranoid about water flow).

Extra $90 for 1000L (2000L/3000L) I'd go for the larger one. Just have lower stocking density and happy fishes! , Could even partition and add water plants for that atheistic appeal or fingerlings for the next years harvest (50 posts yah!!:D 49 full of shit though )

Comon', Royale say something, you only have 2 more to go (48)

That was my line of thinking too, im just worried about cod (the fish Im most interested in stocking) going all territorial

almost there...1 left

Then if you partition small to avoid this, you negate the extra tank size. You could alway stock yabbies seeing as in this case tank size will be larger than required?

Yeah, or have cod in a small partitioned area, and silvers or native catfish at low density in the rest.

50!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :blob7:




Sorry about that

Is this small system going to use swirler and biofilter and operate DWC R?

Swirler = Yes
Bio = Yes
DWC= yes for some of the greenhouse, gravel/beds + drippers for the rest.