Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Digging fish tanks down into the dirt. I have four fish tanks and a sump as well as two filter barrels dug in. I was hoping to have five fish tanks plus the sump but I had to leave the ibc tanks away from the walls a bit due to my foundation sticking in a few inches from my blocks. So the walkways would be less than 24" so I am going to sacrifice a tank to make it easier to move inside I hope. Plus the other tank was going to be a 330 gal so I would have had a lot more digging than I did already (and I think I hauled at least 200 five gallon buckets of dirt already so I'm sore).

Looking good Rob, any updates in the last little while?

I have had the system up and running for a while, I still have one bed that I cut down shorter so it would fit where I want it that I need to plumb in to the system, but I put that on hold and started working on adding the wood burner into the greenhouse. Unfortunately I haven't made much progress on that. I have the wood burner set in place and have most of the parts I need to hook it up... need one more part on the inside then a couple more parts on the outside and I just haven't had time to get back to it. I've been busy with SCUBA diving classes, hunting and family... I am still hoping to get the wood burner operational soon but I might have to take a day off work to be able to spend a day working on it now with two kids at home my nights usually end in me sitting around holding a baby.

I don't have much growing in the system... I did move some cherry tomato plants in that I cloned from the garden plants that have tomatoes on them but they aren't growing much right now because the temps are in the low 40F's and need to be 50F for the tomatoes to grow. I also pulled some pea plants out of the hoop house that I put in the AP system that have some buds on them but I suspect also would like it to be a little bit warmer in there. So hopefully I get the wood burner going soon and can get stuff growing again. I've got a lot of other outside projects I'm trying to tie up before the weather gets really bad.

I've been slacking pretty hard since our daughter was born in August... still don't have the last bed plumbed in, still don't have the wood burner finished installing... just haven't had time for anything extra with 2 kids now. I am looking at some threads and getting the itch to get something growing though so I will try to get some seeds started the next few days so we can at least get some lettuce in the works.

Thanks for the update Rob. Kids have the habit of consuming most/all free time time, especially when very young.

I did make it out to the greenhouse last weekend to at least plant seeds. I don't know if anything will sprout or not with the current temps, but at least I have stuff there to attempt to sprout.

I direct seeded a few different types of lettuce, swiss chard, kale, herbs, peas etc. just to see if anything felt like growing in the low temps. It has been staying in the 50's in the greenhouse with outside temps in the 20's and 30's but we are going to get hit with a bad ice storm this weekend so I don't know what the temps will do after that. I still need to get the wood burner connected but just not finding time for it.

Has been over a year since last post. Have an update?