Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

G'day all,

Thought I'd run an idea by y'all, have been pricing corro grow beds same as Joel M's...300*1800 = $350. Have been using a bath tub as a tank, holds about 200ltr. My design includes a 750mm*2400mm tank with 12-14 bath tub grow beds in series. should fit nicely in a 4*8m undercover area. I can get the bath tubs for 5$ each compared to over 1k for corro!

What do you reckon!?!?

Worms, i've been using a bath tub with gravel on autosyphon as my grow bed. i use pictures in last few pages of my system thread.

Works for me.

Your tank size is 1800L you grow bed water holding capacity at 50% volume due to gravel is 1200 lts.

Id set up two banks of 6 parrallel beds out of phase for filling, so at any one time there is only 600lt gone from your tank.

Steve

I intend to only use bath tubs - auto siphons work well on them (provided you remove the water trap first )

$5 each. I know where I'm movin'. worms they just went up to $5.50 sorry

I recon they do the trick, steve, AM would know. Just don't tell everyone

imo you couldn't get a better growbed then a bathtub.

if i could get them for $5 each my backyard would be full of them. perhaps its a good thing the cheapest i can find them is over $50. if i were you i would snap them up before some other aper finds out the seller. keep your eye on asitis. hehe.

did i mention they also make idea worm farms?

BF, isn't your backyard already full of those FG tanks? LOL

hehe yeah. i always have room to build up. ocd. hehe

Also remember room for that bed? BioF

That reminds me... bed ah yes...

Thanks steve, sorry for the trouble

I have been looking into using bath tubs. I picked up a fiber glass one the other day and am going to use it for Duckweed. I think they would make a great addition to any system. They are already plumbed and ready to go for F&D and CF.

JT

hi all,

just thought i'd give you a look at the progress..bath tub rack

kewl

that'll about do it Worms... rack em up....

wondering if you might need another cross brace though...

how many tubs are you planning on using??

if you're using gravel as your grow medium there's going to be a bit of weight in four + tubs....

I'm sure the lads could work out the weight per tub (filled with gravel) for you, but I'd be bracing it up more I think

Still I'm not an engineer so I'll throw it to others....

Just looking you will proberly need two more supports in the middle

Love the idea worms, but I do agree with ROZ. That thing will bend in half with enough weight. I would recommend maybe AT LEAST another vertical support either side, so you have six 'legs' although 2 more either side would be better. Are the legs cemented in?

It will come down to the grow medium of course. Remember 1 litre of water is a kilo. 12 Bathtubs will equate to over 2 ton of water.

and most gravels will weight 1.5 tonne to the cubic metre