Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello from Elgin TX. I am finally starting my aquaponics system. I have had a very small test system going for several months in a couple of 18 gallon totes hooked up to my goldfish pond with a flood and drain on a timer. I have pretty good success having grown some really nice basil, a bit of tomato, green beans and radishes. It was good enough for my lovely wife to give me the go ahead for a full blown system.

I have an old barn and I turned part of it into a green house replacing some of the tin with clear poly panels, It already had the south wall full of windows so I think there will be plenty of light. I have purchased a 300 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank for the fish tank for $220.00 which will sit on the floor in the corner. My sister-in-law scored 8-55 gallon white barrels for free that she gave me. We sawed these in halve horizontally with a skill saw. I plan to bolt these together and sit them on the floor in a row on each side of the greenhouse. I can get in about 12 or 13 half barrels.

Outside the greenhouse I am burying an old bathtub I got for free from a friend. This will be the sump tank and the lowest point in the system.

The greenhouse has a pretty step slope poured into the slab ( the previous owners used it for a kennel, it even has a drain. So the ST will have a pump in it, which will be on a timer and fill up the FT. The water will drain by gravity into the grow beds then drain by gravity back into the ST.

I have been working on finishing up the green house and plumbing up the barrels and burying the bath tub.

I drilled a 3/4" hole out of the bung on the barrels as it already has threads for a 3/4 adapter. I glued a 1" coupler on the inside using gutter cement. I will use 1" inner pipe with a 2" outer pipe for the stand pipe and overflow. The drains for the growbeds will step down from 1" to 3/4" PVC.

The supply from the FT will be 1/2" PVC.

Once I get everything plumbed I will go fetch some pea gravel for the grow medium. I will mix in some of the gravel from my existing grow beds which should help it cycle quicker, no?

I may just start with a bunch of gold fish or make a trip to a local fish farm for some channel cats.

Does anyone see any errors in my plan? I'd appreciate any advice as I am still a newbie.

G'day EAF....just a tip, resize your pic's to 800x600 and welcome to your new addiction

Yeah welcome EAF.... looks like you got some good stuff to build on...

Welcome

Looking good. Keep us posted.

Question I would appreciate some input on: My wife and I have been discussing the merits of where to put the fish tank, either in the green house or outside the green house. Texas gets really hot in the summer sometimes as hot as 105 F. Would it be easier to keep the fish tank cool inside or outside the greenhouse? Cold weather is not so regular here. Every so often it gets below freezing.

Any advise? Many thanks!

That probably depends on what kind of fish you want to use. If you want to use Tilapia.. you'll have to keep the water warmer and constant so I would vote for indoors. Goldfish or Catfish will probably do fine outdoors with some shade. Shade will be important anyway to keep the algae growth down.

Have you grown Tilapia? Did you just grown them part of the year or all year long? I thought it would be too cold to grow them even in an unheated greenhouse in Texas winters. I was thinking of growing catfish in the winter and Tilapia in the summer.

Nope, I haven't grown anything but my goldfish. I too have thought about growing Tilapia in the summer and catfish in the winter.

You sure you want to step DOWN the drain size? I like to increase a size each time I combine or otherwise transition the drain line... I'm talking going from highest point on down to the sump. I have 4-inch pipe as the last pipe run into the sump. Overkill right now, but I know I'll be able to tie any number of large expansion GBs into it...

I don't necessarily WANT to step down the drain size but the threads on the outside of the barrel are already 3/4" so it is easy to just screw on a 3/4 thread to pvc coupling. The 1" on he inside was also predetermined by the size of the existing fitting. Do you think I will have trouble with a 3/4" drain? I was just going to link one side of the green house barrels in parrallel and do the same for the other side so I would have two drains coming back into the sump tank.

I got my bathtub sump tank completely buried and decided to move the fish tank outside the greenhouse. This will give me room for 14 half barrels in the green house. I painted all the barrels and have the 3/4 connectors screwed in and the 1" connectors glued on. I am using gutter cement for glue. I also decided to use an old 1-1/2" swimming pool hose as an overflow from the FT to the ST.

Before I started filling up my tanks I tested the PH. The water out of the hose is around 8. I collect rainwater and tested it. It is about 6. I tested the water in my goldfish pond where I have been doing my test system and it is about 6.6.

Should I just fill up the tanks with hose water or use a combination of hose water and rain water to try to get the initial PH down? I have read that as the system cycles the PH will come down unless there is something like limestone gravel to keep it high. Any thoughts?

I got my barrels painted and the drains plumbed. I am just about finished installing the overflows.



I bought a truck load of pea gravel this afternoon and tomorrow plan on washing gravel and filling up the grow beds, after I finish the plumbing. Still have to plumb the supply and the overflow from the FT to the ST.

Wow... so many barrels...

But like Sminfiddle said... I think you need to up the size of your "common" drain line... you will occasionally get all barrels emptying at once...

And there's no way your current return line would cpe with even three or four barrels emptying at once...

I drop 4 barrels into 50mm pipe... and at times that can be full...

Personally I think you need to go to 100mm.... you don't need to plumb them as such, just elbow, or 45, down into a 100mm "tee"....
... (ignore the fact that I use loop siphons)

Here's a shot of my barrels for example...

Looking good elgin the boys are right, the smaller pipe will ristrict your flow back and on the off chance media spills into the smaller pipe you will have a bad time trying to get it out.

Here is how my old system drained