Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

WELP, i dont have any fish or veggies to show yet, but ive been scrounging around and have managed to locate a few things im going to need. mainly i was concerned about a sufficient amount of water for fish on the cheap. i put out the word and sure enough my bro calls me a couple days ago and says he has just the thing for me and best of all it wouldnt cost me a dime. so i get up and go out to see this poly tank and sure enough it will do for a starter as it was 1000L and had a nice cage.



i began constructing a growbed from a 55 gal. drum i have a few of, i havent decided on what to paint/line the inside with to prevent corosion. i had thought perhaps pool paint, or truck bed spray liner but im not sure if it would leech anything harmful into my system.



i still need a couple 55 gallon plastic drums, for resevoirs for the plants. my system isnt planned to be a recirculating one, but rather i will use float valves on timers set to top off once daily. the hydroponic tank which i will be able to add supplements too since it doesnt recirculate will top off from the main tank, then the main tank will top off with fresh water. im still ironing out a few of the details, but i think this setup with the right size solid matter filter should let me get growing some veggies right out of the gate, and when my tank cycles awhile and some time passes i can dial the fertilizer way back.

ill post more pics as this progresses and i get more stuff built.......

If I understand, your plan is as follows:

Keep your fish in 1 tank and once a day pump some of that fish tank water into another tank that will then spill into your grow beds. You will add nuitrient into that second tank so as to boost your vegatable growth without contaminating your fish tank.

I'm not sure where the water is going after it leaves the growbeds at the other end

I Not sure how effective this will be in keeping ammonia levels down in your fish tank. The fish tank will have a limited amount of bacteria living in the bioslime on its surfaces but that will probably not be sufficient to convert all the ammonia. The once a day top up of the fish tank with fresh water may help but probably will not dilute the ammonia sufficiently

Maybe I haven't got your idea right

Whats the blue stuff.

Looks like a plastic end cover/protector of some sort.

1000 liters of fish tank and 55 gallons of grow bed just sounds obscenely wrong, you need another one of those poly tanks, cut it in half and use that as your grow bed.

Nice score on the tank by the way, pretty one she is

The Blue and Silver backed "tarp" draped on the IBC is an insulating "Space Blanket". Used them as ground sheets and tent flys when camping years ago. Used to be very popular in the late 60's. Developed for the NASA space program originally.
The blue plastic reinforcing/support corners in the IBC are just that. 4 corner pieces that support the IBC liner at the base. Mine are Black, some are yellow or grey. The only other Blue bit is the Valve handle that I can see? The water in the IBC also appears to be Blue, but I can can only assume it's because of the light reflecting colour due to the camera flash?

Cheers IanK

In theory you shouldn't need to add any nutrients into the second tank as the fish should be able to provide that. HOWEVER, that only applies if you have sufficient stocking levels, but with sufficient stocking levels I'd fear that the daily top-up of fresh water would not be enough to keep the fish alive.

To be honest I'm not clued up on pure hydroponics. This seems like a hybrid aquaponics / hydroponics system. I think the recirculating nature of aquaponics is vital to the system as it's this that keeps the fish healthy and happy. Certainly any stoppage in the cycle and the fish seem to start to die in a matter of hours.

Any particular reason you don't want to recirculate the water? At the moment you are pump free and hence energy free. However your water use will be high.

Be careful with metal drums. They may leech metals into the system. Also be careful with paint.

Good luck!

Paedur

I was wondering about the blue liquid in the tank as well.

the nutrient solution would go back into the second tank for the growbeds, and the blue stuff is a bottle of dawn i added in to help clean out the tank from anything that may have been in it before. ive beeen letting it soak awhile.

Make sure you get all of the dawn out of the tank also.