Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ah... that's true... thought you were talking growbeds when it said "cut them lengthways"...

Most of Joels barrel system uses "loop siphons"... as do I... simple as...

Wow! I'm always amazed at the ingenuity and creativity that goes into these systems... and a D.I.Y. aquaponics system in full bloom just has something about it, I just love seeing the photos here ...but Joel's system is messing with my head, I just can't picture how the water circulates around the system.

Also, I'm having a bit of a think about my fish tank options. I'm starting to lean towards spending a little money on a rectangular poly tank of about 500lt - 600lt capacity, something like a livestock watering trough maybe. If I upgrade to a larger system in the future it can then become the sump, so it wouldn't go to waste. Just going on my past experience with aquariums I think a bunch of silver perch would be happier and therefore healthier if they had the greater continuous length of tank to swim in, and the flat base would allow for greater numbers of yabbies. Does that sound like a better idea than joining a couple of barrels?

Stock tanks are great. If it isn't big enough for a "bigger system sump" then it might make a nice extra deep grow bed for the bigger system. I just installed a couple of 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tanks as grow beds in my system and I rather like em. They would make fine small fish tanks or fingerling tanks for a small system and the price was pretty good here on them.

Gab,
Remember one old thread about Water tanks in Sydney. I am sure it won't be current but might give you some ideas.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=75

I just scored a 1000 lt IBC on ebay for $20, I'm stoked! ...just picked it up tonight, it's in perfect condition, and it didn't look quite that big in the pictures!

It'll be my fish tank, and thanks to the increased fish capacity I'll be setting up 4 x 1/2 tanks as grow beds, which means I'll be using a full 220lt barrel as the sump. That's about as big a system I think I want to take on for now.

I'm glad I hadn't bought the pump yet because that's just gotten a little bigger also.

The next big question on my mind is fish stocking levels. I'm interested in stocking with yabbies and silver perch. I have experience keeping yabbies and know how many I can stock, but I'm not sure what would be an appropriate stocking level of silver perch. What would you recommend to start with?

30-50... although your load will be light for the better part of 12 months... and you'll probably pull the odd one out before they get anywhere near the 1kg mark...