Jaymie's Perfectly Sized System & the Fantastic Fish

Jaymie

Here is a few

shortcuts through this system thread to help you find things.

The site before aquaponics
The bobcat at work
Tank arrival
The top cut off the tank
Tank repairs in progress :setup:

Sealing the tank and concrete
Filling the tank and site layout
Floating rafts with seedlings
The greenhouse frame waiting for the plastic film to arrive
Strawberry towers in progress
Greenhouse film and shadecloth in place
Towers in place and lots of plumbing :wash:

Site with blue drums in place, duckweed baths :fill:

Baby perch! :getfish:

"Aquaponics testing the DIY way"

Seed planting list
Bird netting and planting plan
system timeline, seedling growth
week 7 update
Jades at Week 8
Week 12 update :harvest:

duckweed and growth pictures
some losses
first tomatoes ripening
successes and not-as-much stories
expanded sump
another update
the anniversary of the tank repair
and birthday dinner! :eat:

sump pump failure
tomato bed clean up
herbs grow here
new aerator
latest fish pictures, mixed sizes :getfish:

Hello all, many years ago I trained at college to be an aquaculture technician. Apparently my big problem was that I am the wrong sex...

Anyway the interest in aquaculture has remained and been renewed by hearing about aquaponics. Now my husband is cowering and the children are being ignored as I trawl the net looking for prices and bargains for the gear that we will need.

A technical query for those in the know. Are steel sided & lined swimming pools suitable for the fish pond? Or do you have to go food grade?

thanks, Jaymie

Joyce

Hey Jaymie. Welcome, from one female to another. You are not the wrong sex, just ahead of your time. As you can see from the posts, aquaculture is a growing art. I first learned of aquaculture 14 years ago, and am now getting to put the dream into action; the love of this never goes away. Enjoy your new journey.
You do want to incorporate food grade products into your system, at least nothing toxic.

Donarto

aslong as it's lined it should be fine. Welcome aboard!

creative1

Hi Jaymie,
Welcome...O o!
Once you come in here you are addicted, so be warned.
There has been a lot of discussion about liners.
They must be food grade but you should checkout some posts that relate to this subject. Such as the following.
Questionable construction materials and/or leaching
Good luck....poor old hubby

steve

yeh, its a tough one..........and sometime you need to pick the lesser of two evils. Keeping in mind that pondliners are not necessarily food grade, but lots of people are using them.........know what i mean?

which ever way you go i'm sure the findal products will be a hell of a lot healthier than the commercial equiv. i read some where that some produce is sprayed up to 17 times from planting by the time it reaches the shelves.

Jaymie

It's not just the lesser of two evils, it's also the lesser of two prices.
The pool is $330 and the equivalent tank is $1500.
Unless someone knows a cheaper alternative for a pond/tank approx 3m diam x 1m deep.....

creative1

Was that 1500 for a stand-alone tank?
You could check the price of a potable water liner for the pool.
Rainwater tank liners aren't that Xe are they?
It will cost me 1500 for a 20000 gal liner that's 8m X 2.1

steve

you could get 3 IBC's they are 1 cubic meter you can pick them up for about $100 each so you would have 3000 litres for $300, $30 cheaper than the pool and constructed from HDPE

Steve

Jaymie

scuse my ignorance, but what is an IBC? and where do you get them?

steve

Now worries, just wanted to sound smart

we were calling them all sorts of silly things until Garddy Donaldson set us straight

They are the big white containainers in a cage that you seen on the back of transport trucks. You can pick them up for approx $100 from recycling yards. Some one in your state no doubt knows of a place, give them a day to see your post and someone might put you onto a source. There has been much discussion about the IBC's (an incentive to get through all the posts

)

Look at my system thread and you'll see about 30cms of mine, the rest i sunk into the ground for thermal insualtion and to facilitate gravity return

Steve

Jaymie

Right, now I know what you're talking about. I have seen them hurtling by on the highway.
My husband has been asking a neighbour who works for the army about the possibility of any out-of-service water tanks from them. We'll see what happens there.

creative1

do a google search for 'better drums', then you might get the idea.

EllKayBee

Welcome Jaymie,
they are nice friendly people here, if you haven't read through all the threads yet then put aside a lot of leisure time to get up to speed - believe me it is worth the effort.

Les

creative1

good advice-Les.
There is more than a good book in here and if you want a good book try Joel's.

Jaymie

I'm pulling in favours from all around, on the scrounge. The guy across the road also has blue dums he can give us.
But first I have to clean up the yard so I can fit this project in... Any one want to whipper snip the 8 foot spear grass for me? there's not that much of it...

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics