Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here's the 300 gallon system I'm setting up for Bluegill and Channel Cats. Two 150 gallon tanks and sump. Growbeds will be at the back (not built yet):

Cool - with animal proof enclosure!

It's not quite animal-proof yet - it needs a door - but keeping out the critters is a necessity here!

I'm going to be building the grow beds this weekend. Extremely excited, can't wait to get some salad growing! Can I plant the beds immediately they are installed, or do I need to let the water circulate through for a period (if so, how long?)?

i planted immediately, but lost some seedlings to minor hsm's.. overflooding the growbed.. stuff like that, but a few kept going, and i planted more pretty steadily until i had a little too much growth and had to thin it out..
i need more patience to do things a little more "neatly"

Yes Ludi... plant immediately...

I'm leaning toward using the floating raft system rather than media, because what I chiefly want to grow is lettuce and other salad greens. I have a 1000 square foot dirt garden for things that don't want so much water, but growing lettuce here can be difficult especially in our current severe drought. I also want to grow watercress. So I'm changing my plan to be continuous flood rather than flood and drain.

Been working on the system a bit.

Here's the growbed support I built:



Scrubbing out the growbeds:



Future new sump tank because the present one isn't deep enough:



Setup. There will be more growbeds along the side:

I want to thank folks here for always talking about setting up the system long before one plans to get fish. Wow, this is taking me forever. Had a bit of a setback - the barrels I wanted to use for growbeds are too old and they sprung leaks when I filled them with water. So now I have to buy some new containers. Oh well, so much for cheapness! But nobody said this is a cheap project. :p

First floating island, temporarily in a fish tank, and not planted yet:

Shame about the growbeds Ludi, normally those barrels are very strong and it's hard to get leaks in them..

It's very odd, they are full of tiny cracks. I'm going to try to use one as my new sump tank and use the newer green barrel to replace the cracked barrel, but I don't know if it will hold up. I'll keep trying to recycle these things, but I just don't know if they'll make it! :p

New sump:

Plants seem to be doing fine:

How do you like using those Rubbermaid stock tanks Ludi? And are those the 300 gallon tanks or are they 150 gallons each? Very nice set-up, look forward to seeing more.