Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks, I did a Image search on them and I like the ones where they cut out the window in a shape of a fish. I also liked the one barrel ones. I will look into the nice tan colored ones. I can't see big blue barrels in the house being attractive. Would be good for a variety of crops and fish. The list of designs is as endless as the imagination.
Thanks,
D

Weird, some of the posts are missing. I know one of my comments is.

Hi Rishel, I'm not a mod here but I used to play one on TV,

In the search function under Author with your name, it shows 12 posts by you. 11 of them here and one on another thread. Maybe that's the one you are missing?

"You best watch that Rhode Island Red thsdragoon, my daughter is eyeballing it."

All of my posts to your thread are here. If you are still missing one, a high level mod would need to check your history. We can't get to that. Hope that post was the one.
D

Rishel
I have had to retype one of my replies to you 3 times mes to get it to go. I believe there was a glitch a day or two ago.

Deuem
You could also use a old wine barrel the clad the t barrel steup to make it more pleasing to the eye

That would be nice enough to look at. I wonder if I could find one here or I could always get it hand made. I did see one guy who wood clad a plastic barrel and stained it. That would be OK also. So the next million dollar question is " Is it worth it? How many fish can one raise in it. The results would need to be at least 1 fish a week at least a couple of pounds. Enough for 3 to 4 to eat for dinner. And that result has to continue for 52 weeks and never stop.

As it is, I have read and heard a lot about AP plants but the fish end of it seems a bit fishy so far. A lot of YTubers claim to have thousands of fish in that bin over there but we never see them pull them out. I have never seen them even feed them. If you toss in a handful of food into a FT with a thousand fish it will boil with activity. When I had a dozen Blue Gills in our pond, feeding time needed an umbrella.

I think I wrote this here somewhere before but I have a hard time believing that the 2 blue barrel E&F split system will grow fish. With over 200, 80% water changes a day I can't even see gold fish living thru that. Not to mention it almost drains the fish tank. I think most people start with good intensions and then never post the failures. Most likely they dump the fish and switch to Hydroponics, go to constant flow or add more barrels for water. On the T Barrels or one over one if you use CF, then the fish might have a fighting chance. people are always very proud of their accomplishments and I think if these split barrels really grew fish we would see all sorts of vids on them taking out full grown fish. Why show me a head of lettuce and not the fish? I am not seeing the pride and joy, just fishy stories. I need to hear a lot of stories about more fish in small tanks. My FT is around 70 gallons and there is no way I could raise fish in it to dinner plate size. Maybe just 1. Maybe I could grow sardines. Something that size would work.

Deuem

Deuem
T barrels are more for the plant side for obvious reasons. Just pulling a number out of thin air. At say a 5 mo grow out your previous challenge would require about 260 fish. In various stages of grow out. Which requires a much bigger system. Impossibly large for someone in an apartment. Especially considering the large amount of grow beds needed to deal with the fish waste. Now if fish were more important than the plants. In a small area I would look into a RAS system.

Ok. Well today I got 16 brand new 55 gallon barrels ordered.

500 Gallon Open Top Tank (with removable peep hole and fully removable top)

rishel are you going to use clay balls? If possible once they are loaded could you let me know how much water they hold to your marks . It might be around 18 gallons per tank.
D

floridafishin: Do I read that right? One needs about 260 fish in various stages just to pull one out a week to eat. I used to sell 10 food fish a day. So is that 260 x 10 x 7 or 18,200 in line waiting to eat? OK, forget that idea. It's no wonder the stocking fish are in ponds from 1 to 10 acres each. Not gonna fit that in the condo! I have not yet heard of a RAS system, will look it up next. I guess I will stick with the statement that the fish end of this is Fishy for small units.
D

At this time I do have Hydroton, but I am interesting in the extruded / blown shale and small river-stones also.

Jury is still out.

Have a welding friend strategizing with me on making double level rack systems from aluminum.

I want this to function awesome, but I want it to look very professional also. It's just a part of me that takes pride in somethings appearance, although maybe not necessary, its just the artistic side of me.

Vanity? Perhaps. But when people walk inside the greenhouse I want them to see a very advanced, efficient, and beautiful layout.

I can feel that pain, I want mine to be right in the house/condo. So who whats a junker sitting inside to look at 24/7. I am interested on how you will make those blue barrels attractive. If I had the room I would most likely go with lined wooden tanks and dress up the exterior with plastic wood trim molding if I had too. The depth is constant, you can make them to any size and they can be made to be very attractive. There is one YT film out there where a guy used all old rustic 4 x 4s and when finished it was really nice. 100% of the plumbing was hidden from view and it looked like a piece of art.

I am not sure how I could dress up a blue barrel for it to look top notch. It would be a design problem and harder if I went 2 levels of them. I would then see all the bottoms and mechanics. With the wooden grow beds they would give me by nature all smooth flat surfaces to work with. Then I only have to deal with rot in the design. On another site they paint all the exposed wood with a pond paint for wooden fish tanks and it seals it up. You could also start with Marine grade plywood.
Deuem

Well, the 16 barrels... I have the option of blue, black or the white (milky white, slightly see through, more like shadows).

Not sure which color to use. It's Florida, so not sure...

From what I understand so far, the darker the better so I guess Black is the best. They try to keep fungus and algae from growing inside the tank from the water line down. White for the fish is OK. keeps them warmer.
D

Interesting. It was my understanding that a black tank for fish would be warmer, and ultimately more suitable for keeping the temps up.

So black grow beds in black are best?