Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

my system is made of 4 ibcs 2 for my fishtank and sump and the other two cut in half to make 4 grow beds. these are 275 gal tanks. i will be using expanded clay as my media. i will be stocking my fish tank with talapia. how many can i stock in a system like this?

Is this system outside? If so how are you going to heat it. I live in Texas and can't seem to raise tilapia outside during the winter.

its going to be inside my garage and headed. ive also looked into maybe having channel catfish if i cant keep the temperatures at a suitable range.

but i cant get a fix on how many i can support with my amount of filtration.

3kg (6.6lb) of adult fish to 100lt (26.4gal) of growbed media.

If you are letting them grow to 500grams (1.1lb) then that is 6 fish per 26.4 gal

With your ~500gal of media you are looking at ~115 fish.

BUT.....for an i mature system it would be best to halve this number, and increase gradually every 6 months.

It will also depend on your available space in your fish tank.

Check "IBC of aquaponics" for more details

With respect DrLuke, 115 fish in an IBC surpasses the often ridiculed '100 fish per 1000L' rule of thumb promoted in some circles. Does the 1000L sump effectively mean that felix161 would be stocking at 57.5 fish per 1000L, even though all the fish are actually living in half that volume?
I personally think it is way better to have lower numbers of fish and a larger safety margin, or buffer, against unforeseen events.
Just my thoughts, and I freely admit to not yet running an IBC AP system (although I do have a few of Silver Perch in an IBC).

to add further to this, you need to consider the amount of food you will be feeding as that is ultimately what the filter medium has to cope with. I had 30 trout in nearly 3000l of medium and that pushed my system to the limits - but I was feeding those fish between 1 and 1.5 kg of food per week.

Sorry I thought the OP said two x IBC tanks for his FISH TANK, not ft and sump combined, that would make 55 fish in each.

In any case I qualified my statement by saying that it depends on the space available in the fish tank.

You are right, but I would consider this feed rate quite large. If we are going to challenge the 3kg of fish to 100lt of filtration, then we will be challenging most people's recommendations on his site. I would happily do 50 silver in a single IBC with sufficient filtration and water turn over rate, and probably about 40 trout in an IBC.

Though I am still building up to these stocking levels, and have not reach them my self.

thanks now i got a some what better grasp on what my system could handle. i wanna be on the safe side so im probably going to stock on the low end of the numbers given.

That is if i actually find a fishfarm that will return my multiple calls or emails. ive got plenty around me its that there phone skills lack. i think im going to have to pay a visit to the nearest one.

i know alot of this fourm is full of aussies but is there anyone in the Oregon area perhaps?

I'm still waiting to hear back about some trout myself, I'm told they just haven't grown as fast as they were hoping and they don't want to sell until they get a bit bigger. Needing 30 or 40 fish doesn't get much attention when they normally deal in thousands but they are usually nice about it. What this means is that sometimes you have to wait for someone who needs more fish to make it worth their while. Keep at it and you'll find someone, there are lots of fish suppliers in your area.