Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

HI Jayendra,

They are butchers tubs, also known as fish bins, 52ltr and food grade.
They have held up pretty well in the three years i have used them considering the weight they hold in blue metal and water, i think in total only one of the original 18 have broken.

Regards

Looking good.

How's the new beds coming along?

Hey Colum, hows things mate,

They new system is coming along nicely, just sitting around waiting for the welder to arrive as we speak..everything is cut and ready for assembly, and i have most all of the parts, just waiting for the filter drums to arrive to pick up.

very excited to get it finished and flick the switch as soon as we can.

Regards

All going well, and the design I put in is still rock solid! I've got pretty painted pictures of the beds now if you wanted them on your blog too.

Are you going to keep both systems going? Or pulling down the old one and replacing it with the new?

Mate, I would love to see them, for sure, on your system thread?

Ultimately i want this new one online for this spring/summer growing season.
I will keep the little one going for this season too, because of its performance last season, then when winter hits i will pull it off line for a well deserved upgrade and make over.
I really want to look at either reconfiguring the constant flood set up that we threw together in a hurry, or binning the little tubs altogether and replace them with 1/2 IBC beds.
Really, the decision comes down to the space i have to work in, which is really very little.

Cheers

It's all in my thread. Feel free to copy away.

For the area it's in, I'd just make a couple of larger beds, or a few custom longer ones against the fence. Should fit nicely.

What are those tubs Porter, I likey!

G'Day Charlie, hows the new place coming along?

Mate, they are the same ones we have been using for a couple of years now,
They are butchers tubs, also known as fish bins, 52ltr and food grade.

Cheers

Beauty Mate, i will check it out, i haven't been on here for some time, so i get some catching up done.

For sure, its a tough one alright, going to have a good hard ponder over it that's for sure.

Cheers

Well,

The second system is moving along nicely now,

I went and had a look at the frames, and tests fitted the grow beds yesterday,
Very very happy in short.

The first one arrives this weekend so we can begin plumbing etc, and the other one will arrive early next week fingers crossed.

We still have to tidy up the edges, fit the flooring, cut them nice and flush, but I will need to fill it first to allow the weight to settle, then we can secure them to the frame, add some cladding and paint and should be sweet.

Given the exposure of this system compared to the little one we have, we will run Silver Perch i think, There is very little in the way of shelter from the sun and as the days race towards summer, trout are out of the question in this one.

Stoked!

Sexy - what do you clad them with?

Hi Jayendra,
In this instance, we will line the beds with weed matting or some other cheep dark thingy to block out the light as best as we can, then we will clad the top half with palings (like we did at the old house see attached) and the bottom half with aviary wire to act as a temporary cat run for our indoor cat.

Regards

This is so cool!

Both new stands arrived today, and they are the mustard!

if it wasn't for the hail and rain i would be out there working.

Extremely happy!

Now affectionately known as the 'big system', it's total water capacity is 3500ltrs, small compared to some of the systems out there, but over twice the capacity of our original system, now affectionately known as the 'little system'.

Seriously can not stop grinning!

Looking good there Porter, although I would have a think about getting some diagonal bracing put into the lower part of those stands. It is surprising how much a bit of bracing can improve stability when you have a lot of weight suspended up in the air like that.

Nice! You'll have it up and running in no time.

Just out of curosity, how much did the stands set you back?