Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is what I do with the contents of cleaning solids from my bio-filter. I save this wonderful liquid and use it on my soil garden!

This is the site to be of my new steel frame greenhouse. It will go between the current gh and that old boat, which will hopefully be gone soon. Trying to trade it for 2 food grade ibc totes. I have gotten through a winter season with my current gh and I definetly know of changes that I am going to make in the building of my next one. It will Include a 55 gallon steel drum burn barrell stove with chimney pipe for the really cold nights. I am planning on tyring to have tilapia survive outdoors through the winter in this new gh. I will definelty have a breeder set inside just in case. I obviously will need to use a dc solar type or just battery backup system for their heaters. Enought rambling, any ideas? Thoughts?

Hey Kev,
I dont recall what part of georgia you are in but savannah, Jesup and around Augusta I have been finding totes for $50-$75 on craig's list. If you contact them they may be willing to trade.

Nice set-up. re: tilapia outside. I am planning on having a "fish room" inside of my greenhouse. It was originally planned to be a small room on the outside wall but since we roofed the gh we have room inside now. It will be insulated and roofed to keep the fish tank temps more regulated...just a though.

Nice set up!

Brian

Yeah, I've found totes in the same area, problem is there are none near me, atleast thay I have found yet. I'm in North west Ga, just about 10 miles below the TN line. I've found a few in chattanooga but not food grade, oh well!
Very nice idea about that "fish room", we will definetly need all the help and extra insulation to keep tilapia through the winter here. It will be a challenge but if I prepare for the worse, unexpected, and have a few backup sources etc.. I think I can do it. The mozambique tilapia I have are supposed to be able to adapt in temps between 40 F and 104 F. I Don't plan on subjecting them to such low temps as 40 as they won't grow, breed, probalbly won't eat. But I have a few months to figure things out, be here before you now it!

Gotcha,
There was a guy at the AP forum who was from around Athens who had a contact for $50 totes I will see if I can get in touch with him if that isn't too terribly far from you...

The totes don't necessarily have to be food grade. Quite a few folks are using ones that housed chemicals of one sort or another. Clean them out real well, scrub, fill partly with water and leave them in the sun. If it grows algea and/or mosquito wigglers, then it should be fine to use for fish or growbeds.

Great point Mr Bill!!!
"aha moment for bk"

I enjoyed following your system, especially since you were a fellow ga-ian...
Brian

Thanks for that advice Mr. Bill. I have found some close by me that contained soap in them. I guess thats better than one with some sort of acid or petroluem. Maybe I can scrub it like you say and fill it and let it grow algae and also could throw in some goldies from the pet store and see how they adapt.

Guess what! I FOUND IBC TOTES NEAR ME!!

Oh, and 55 gallon barrels too!! I will be starting on my new steel frame greenhouse in a day or two, (prob. 2) and will be posting pics. For now it will only be covered with shade cloth for the summer. Thinking of doing a chift pist system. The FT will be a 275 gallon IBC and I will have 8-12 barrel halves for GB's. Can I use a 55 gallon barrel burried as a sump? Will it be large enough? Am I correct in thinking that I can doulble the growbed volume to the fish tank volume. If so than I'd still have a little room left for some nft or a small raft tank. I think that was mentioned in one of Murray Hallam's videos. Any thoughts??

Lucky dog finding decent IBC tanks and good barrels
The two main rules of AP: to turn over the fish tank water every hour, stock the tank to the filtration capacity not the tank capacity.
The more growbeds you have the better, so you should be fine doing a 2:1 ratio. As for the sump tank, I believe anything can be a sump. It's not a place to grow out fish, just a place to catch the water. Fish need "elbow room" to grow. Besides, the water level would fluctuate fairly drastically which isn't conducive to fish health. As to the question if it's large enough, as long as you have a decent size sump pump with a working float valve, it should work great.

More pics please. We all like pictures.

Look at what I just got!
For the price ($40) I had to get two! Sorry the pic is a bit blurry

Nice pickup Kevyrev

I just read through the Ibc tote cleaning section here and have few questions if anyone can help. It seems a few people have used non-food grade totes with items such as engine oil and various chemicals and cleaned them up just fine. My totes contaied a water softener that was used at a coin operated carwash. After reading the section (these are my first totes) I figure that I should cut the top off, use a degreaser, followed by bleach, followed by dishsoap, and rinsing well. Then it shoud be filled with water and set in the sun for several days to allow algae to grow. Am I straight here? Was wondering if and how I should dilute the bleach. Since receiving them I filled them both with water, even threw a handful of duckweed in each as I have too much and it could absorb any impurites. I will be discarding that duckweed obviously! Any suggestions would be great!!

I haven't had time to even get started on the new gh yet. Been so busy with everything else but I hopefully can get the frame laid out this week. It is going to be 14'x20', at least as of now. I have changed my original plan of the layout and I am still trying to settle on my final plan. I definetly want to build and install a dwc raft tank, I am even thinking about using it as a sump. If anyone has any advice on this I would love to hear about it. I have never had a raft tank and I really need to research and become familiar with them.
I will post a few pics of my growbed in my one year old system in a few days. My tomatoes are almost to the roof of the gh. Have lots of blooms and a few roma and cherry toms allready!