Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

Jon from UK here, after much researching and deliberating, I finally made a start on my first AP system and thought I'd share my progress. Ordered an IBC last week from a local guy who also kindly delivered it. It came really clean having had some kind of milk based substance in it previous (the soured smell was quite gut wrenching at first but quite used to it now). Spent yesterday cutting it up and am quite happy with the results. Took a nice tip from somewhere of drilling new holes for the cross members in the top section to make use of the nice finish of the cage on the top rather than underside.



Gave it a proper clean today with detergent, planning to give it a swill with baking soda in the week to make sure no nasties are left from the detergent.

I also put together the pipework for the grow bed which i'm pretty happy with. Pump is being delivered in the week so I will be able to figure out the hose to the grow bed plumbing then. I've gone for 21mm waste pipe and push fit joints. I'm going to be drilling 6mm holes around the pipe at some point this week.

Grow medium is also on its way, gone for clay balls on this setup.

So far so good, but any tips welcome - haven't really thought too much about fish as yet.

Welcome to the forum! That looks lovely and neat for a first time cutting up an IBC, well done

From your picture I can't tell if you've got any support under the growbed apart from the two cage crossbars - you might need to add something solid under there so it doesn't warp and bow when it's full of media and water.

Thanks, means a lot! I was really pleased with it. I spent so much time deliberating I decided to just cut it.

There isn't any extra support there but I was planning on picking up a couple of 3x2 lengths or something this week.

Hi all,
Back with a bit of an update, well quite a bit of an update really.
I've been meaning to come back and show the progress but haven't had a chance.

I gave the IBC's another good cleaning before cracking on with the pipework. I opted to run a 21mm PVC pipe around the perimeter of the grow bed with 6mm holes drilled at 15-20cm intervals.

Rough idea of the pipework in place there, also as you can see I've opted for clay balls for grow medium. I initially ordered just a single 45l bag to get a feel for how much would be required to fill the bed. It took just under 5 bags (approx 210l) in the end.

I had free slave labour for around 10 minutes until the kids got bored cleaning the clay balls, fair enough though it was a bit of a tedious task.


I managed to get it all in place and was really pleased with everything


Next job was to tackle the siphon, I was really struggling to find the same parts in the UK, but ended up getting a few bits here and there. I used a 90 degree tank connector for the "bulkhead fitting" and fit it right through the centre cap.
[img]https://jonarcher.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/IMG_20160429_181934717.jpg]
the bottom side of the tank connector was a standard 21.5mm push fit connection which was perfect, however the other side was a length of screw fit (possibly 3/4" BSP) and I struggled to find anything which would join that to the push fit pipe, the internal diameter was just ever so slightly too small to house the pipe too. After much searching I journeyed into the kitchen with both tank connector and a piece of pipe and lit the hob. Result!
[img]https://jonarcher.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/IMG_20160503_201058942-576x1024.jpg[img]

After seeing Titus setup ( http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21619&hilit=vanilla#p453544 )with the IBC frame painted black and the coco fabric, I thought "I like that" and emptied the medium and painted the frame black (I'll get the fabric later)



Back to sourcing parts for the siphon, I found an old piece of drainpipe (68mm) which I was originally going to use for the media guard but wasn't convinced it was big enough, plus I would have had to use something like 30mm pipe for the cover pipe for the bell siphon. That was until I found an old piece of soil pipe (maybe 110mm) in the garden, it had never been used for its original purpose but used to let water flow around a small garden patch. It was even cut to the perfect length.

The only bit missing was the bell cap, and after trawling around various plumbers merchants and DIY stores I was about ready to give up and go with a constant height setup. That was until i was in the shed cutting the slots into the media guard that I spotted a can of de-icer, removed the cap off it and it slotted straight into the drainpipe. The rigid element which attaches to the actual can held it in place and it just works perfectly!

I lifted the cage back into place, put the growbed in and re-attached the pipe, the pump is attached with a length of black pond hose, and returned the grow medium back to the bed.



Really happy with the frame and the siphon, in fact the whole setup. At this point I left the system cycling, mainly to give the medium a good clean, as you can see the water looked awful after its first cycle.


That brings us up to this weekend just past, I emptied off the water in the fish tank and gave it another good clean out to try and get rid of as much of the debris. After this I refilled the tank up to the expected level and let it cycle through, the water stayed nice and clean following this so we stuck some lettuce in which had been growing nicely in small bedding boxes and left it over the weekend.


I tested the water last night for the first time:

Not sure you can tell from the picture but in real life that looked somewhere between 7.2 and 7.6 which as we are going for goldfish initially was actually spot on.

So today I headed over to the aquarium and bought our first 20 fish


They all settled in really nicely, and seemed to absolutely love the water siphoning in. Lets just hope they are all still as happy over the next few days.

I'm going to try and get rid of some of the clay debris that has entered the tank again over the next couple of days and will keep you posted of the future progress.

Welcome Jon and well done for the IBC.

I'm in the process of getting my material together, but if you want to look at my design you can see it here:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=27188

I think your system looks great.

Looks awesome Jon, and I love the little scarecrow!

Now that you've got fish in there producing nutrients, expect your water to go green - you can limit it by covering and wrapping your tank to keep light out, which will also stop UV light damaging it, but it's almost guaranteed to happen. Don't panic when it does, you don't need to do water changes or anything, just feed the fish less while it's green (and while you have ammonia and nitrites showing in your tests, you've probably got measurable ammonia already and the nitrites will show up soon) and keep pumping the water around the system and it should clear up quickly.

The two images I messed up in the post.

Thanks for your kind words and advice Mel, I'm planning on building a wooden surround for the fish tank and putting some insulating material between it and the tank. Hopefully this will provide both temperature help and also reduce the UV.

Bunja, thank you. I actually read your thread the other day. I find myself fascinated in other setups and spend a lot of time reading and watching YouTube videos to get tips.

New here and to aquaponics. This setup is exactly what I needed! Thanks. Who would've thunk I had a container laying around and can get more.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice setup mate,I noticed your ph reading.did you test both ph high as well ?looks like you did a reading for ph low just wondering :-)

Hi Rocketrod,
I didn't bother as it seemed to be lower than 7.6.

I'm going to test all tonight and I'll do phHigh out of curiosity now.

Just checked the tank and all fish are still alive and looking reasonably happy.

Introduced another 20 fish today. All seem happy in there so really pleased with that.

Levels are starting to increase when tested the water yesterday for ammonia and nitrates.

Looking like decent progress so far.

Only thing that I'm not 100% happy with is the fill speed, seems a little too quick and the pump is on lowest setting. However I think I'm going to introduce a couple of strawberry towers which should take some of the flow.

More progress today, building a wooden casing to go around the fish tank. It's built from a few wooden pallets which were being thrown away by some roofers (the roof tiles came on them).

Really pleased with the results.