Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We just purchased (4) 300 Gallon IBC Totes. We pressure washed the insides with a detergent and have thoroughly flushed them out. Trial run I killed a few gold fish...we do not have grow beds yet. We are having a 12' * 12' building moved next week next to the IBC containers and will use solar power and wind turbine for power....along with sunlights and some artificial lights for the grow beds.

So in a few weeks I will post more pictures but in the meantime...any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the forum

3 totes is a good start

I wanted 2 to start with...but the guy sold me 4 of them for $50 a piece...I couldn't pass on it...

Just made another few purchases for our aquaponic system.

(4) 169 Gallon Galvanized Water tanks as our grow beds. We pick them up from the local Co-Op next weekend.

We ordered 2000 red worms. (yet to decide what to raise them in) but bought enough peat moss to fill a tub.

We ordered 5lbs of Black Fathead Minnows which should be here in about 2 weeks.


I want to try and raise as much as the fish food as possible and supplement with Non-GMO Fish Feed.




My question, is it better to do "flood & drain" as opposed to "constant flood"?


We have a 12 * 12 building with a metal roof that we are going to replace the roof with a translucent roof for our Grow Bed house. We live out in the country and I want to keep wild life from out plants.


With the above "grow beds" and the (4) 300 gallon tanks we have...what pumps would you recommend...and do I need a place for solids...or just send to the grow beds and let them handle the solids?

Thanks for your help.

I hope you are planning to but some plastic liner into the grow beds as galvanised steel isn't healthy for fish, in general every type of metal should be avoided building an ap system.

OK, so using these for the grow beds is not a good idea? Hummmm.....These tanks for the GBs are about 8' long. I was going for a few long grow beds...What would you recommend? We can cancel the order with the Co-Op since we just ordered today.

When you search in the forum for galvanised steel, you will find some posts which state that zinc accumulates in the system/fish and will kill them.

I haven't worked with any lining product, so can't give you any advise there. I used cut up ibc for my Gbs.

Question, I have the (4) IBC totes. I want three different fish in three different IBC's and the fourth tote I want to try...not sure yet...really....

My question is...for the 4 IBC totes...will I need 4 different pumps....or can I have the totes go to (1) 50 gallon drum and then pump to my grow beds from there. With 4 totes....and I want to fill them all with something good to eat.... what type of filtration system would I use for the fish excrement?

Thanks in advance for your help.

a fifty gallon drum would probably be a little too small to pump out of
i'd use a couple of the totes as growbeds (1 tote cut in half is 2 good size growbeds) filled with media this would be your filter....base the number of fish you stock on the volume of your gb's
i have a single tote system where one half the tote is the ft and the other half the gb and 1 pump.. my bigger system i have 3 tote halves for gb's, a tote halve for the sump, and an 8' dia pool for the ft.. i have yellow perch, tilapia and bluegill in the ft..so you can mix fish in one tank, they just need to be close to the same size

SO my idea is completely use the IBC for fish tanks. We have a green house (not yet shown) where we are building grow beds that hang from the exterior walls. Not sure of dimensions for GB yet, but can post pics and dimensions soon.

I wanted to see if I need 4 pumps (1 for each IBC) or is there a way to use gravity or some system to fill a sump...and then pump to grow beds...but I also was thinking with 4 IBC filled with fish I might run into a waste issue....

My goal this weekend is to get everything plumbed and running....get the PH right...get the temperature up in the FT and then try and get some minors in there to see if they live....lol...

I have a 100 gallon FT I am using for raising red wigglers....and want to raise some minnows as well to offset the cost of the NON-GMO fish feed.

OK, so we moved the totes behind a building (used cross ties and 9tons of pea-gravel) to level the IBC. I am going to use this building as a green house. The metal roof is being taken off this weekend and we are going to put clear/greenhouse roof on it. (That was for lack of correct terminology for the roof material)

My idea is to have my GB inside away from the animals….we are building a lean-to over the FT and will put Visquene around it to keep from the winter wind.

I have ordered tank warmers and plan to get water flowing this weekend. The chiminike was used to keep me warm while getting the IBC containers in place & level.

Hello

I connected my three sump tank with uniseal and 90mm pipe. There is one size were you can fit a shower drain cover to stop fish from moving between tanks and it equalises the level in the tanks. I had some sweet water prawns in one and sweet water crayfish in the other. The third was housing the pumps.

Do you think this is an economical way of heating my fish tanks? Looked pretty interesting and better than expensive fish tank heaters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DMiYSoffBA

OK, so here are my totes under the lean-to we built to keep them shaded year round.

So we added an 8' wide by 3' deep soil garden to the mix. The netting over it is on a hinged frame. We can lift it up with the handle, work in the garden and lower it back keeping the animals out of it.

We have over 5,000 night crawlers in here as well.