IBC containers in Naples, FL.

[Luis Arteaga]

Hi there guys/girls, i am just beginning my setup, looking for IBC tanks locally i`d found a guy who owns a big truck and can bring 275 gallons (1000 litres) IBC tanks from GA at $100 a piece, i`d make kind of a good relation with him and so far he told me that if i order 10 or more it can be possible to get them for $80.00 each, so if we had enough people interested in IBC tanks in our area we can make a order big enough to get the tanks for $80.00 a piece, so far i can use another two, anyone interested?

They are not food grade, they do have some kind of bonding compound for cement-asphalt and need to be open and clean very good, i did clean mine with industrial degreaser (twice), one more time with biological soap and them with water and vinegar, it cost some effort and time but after that they are supporting fish with no problems whatsoever this far, the biggest problem is cleaning the valves but this is possible to acomplish too, just let me know if you are interested and we go from there.

[Luis Arteaga]

Randall Wimbish said:

I personally would keep looking until I found food grade. Is there not a soda water drink plant near you? Coke,Pepsi or something?

 

 

Unfourtunately no that i know of, the closest one is the water treatment plant and they bring heavy chemical compounds in them to put in the water and i don`t think that chlorine or similars are food grade or close to it, i am using the ones i bought from this guy w/o any problems so far having goldfish in there for two weeks and they still alive and kicking.

The only one offering me food grade IBC containers was a guy close to Lakeland (140 miles from my place) and at $170 each, to far and too expensive, i`d took the gamble with those ones and so far it`s working, i do think that the trick is in the cleaning, after a good cleaning nobody can detect what was in these tanks anymore and clean is clean no matter what it was in they before.

The first container i did use was a one i was having with used motor oil in it for a couple years, i bet that if you come to my place you can`t tell me which one it was, but i`d cleaned so throughout that it took me two days and two gallons of degreaser to get it the way i wanted and even after that i put in a open space under the sun for two weeks and cleaned one more time with water and vinegar after that, i don`t think that after so many care and cleaning anyone can find any rest of oil in it. Well it`s true that not everybody get to such extremes in cleaning a tank and many don`t have the time for it. I do have the time, what i don`t have is a lot of money so i have to go with where i can find within my budget.
 

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

Would you feed a pregnant woman with food from plastic dixie plates that previously were smeared with asphalt bonding agents and industrial degreasers. Even if you got it pretty clean i still sayYuk! Pay a little extra and get food grade...or design a different system than IBC

[Luis Arteaga]

Jonathan Kadish said:

Would you feed a pregnant woman with food from plastic dixie plates that previously were smeared with asphalt bonding agents and industrial degreasers. Even if you got it pretty clean i still sayYuk! Pay a little extra and get food grade...or design a different system than IBC

 

 

Well, i am open to anyone offering IBC tanks food grade for under $80.00 close to my place. Until i can`t find them, i am willing to risk my own health eating from what i am going to grow in these tanks, i know the  way i clean them and what i did to rinse them, i bet that what we eat w/o knowing where it came from and what they did with or what they put it then to grow them it is sometimes more dangerous that what i am doing.

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

For sure there is much in our environment, and what we eat (GMOs for example) that can be toxic to us. But part of what makes aquaponics great is that we can control what goes into the production of food we eat to avoid toxicities, why add to them? Why even bother with all the hassle of doing aquaponics if you are not improving on what you can buy from supermarkets? And when you have a bumper crop of tomatoes are you going to feel comfortable divulging the source of your tank to Mrs. Jones when she comes over for dinner and wants to take some home?
Luis Arteaga said:

Jonathan Kadish said:

Would you feed a pregnant woman with food from plastic dixie plates that previously were smeared with asphalt bonding agents and industrial degreasers. Even if you got it pretty clean i still sayYuk! Pay a little extra and get food grade...or design a different system than IBC

 

 

Well, i am open to anyone offering IBC tanks food grade for under $80.00 close to my place. Until i can`t find them, i am willing to risk my own health eating from what i am going to grow in these tanks, i know the  way i clean them and what i did to rinse them, i bet that what we eat w/o knowing where it came from and what they did with or what they put it then to grow them it is sometimes more dangerous that what i am doing.

[Luis Arteaga]

i will like to know from other people experiences if somebody had ever use a non-food grade ibc container (after cleaning and rinse them very very well) for a fish tank or a grow bed and have had any problems, i sincerelly believe that after the way i have clean them, and i mean CLEAN THEM, probably they are much better clean now than when they were new but anyway, comments from other people experiences are welcome.

[Luis Arteaga]

Well, my wife did read the discussion and she took your side, and i can`t fight my wife and win, it has never happen so far, so they are going to the county waste management area tomorrow morning, actually i am kind of happy too, people could have ask some questions in the future about the origin of the tanks and even if they are so well clean they have this bad reputation and can make lift more than one eyebrow to some people, so end of the story, now the question is:  can tanks that had been transporting UREA been used for AP? i have been reading about in wikipedia and elsewhere and what i see don`t look bad, take a look:

" Urea or carbamide is an organic compound with the chemical formula CO(NH₂)₂. The molecule has two —NH₂ groups joined by a carbonyl (C=O) functional group.

Urea serves an important role in the metabolism of nitrogen-containing compounds by animals and is the main nitrogen-containing substance in the urine of mammals. It is solid, colourless, and odorless (although the ammonia that it gives off in the presence of water, including water vapor in the air, has a strong odor). It is highly soluble in water and practically non-toxic (LD50 is 15 g/kg for rat). Dissolved in water, it is neither acidic nor alkaline. The body uses it in many processes, the most notable one being nitrogen excretion. Urea is widely used in fertilizers as a convenient source of nitrogen".

So i highly expect than they are ok, i have some guy around selling some of them for not so much so actually i can have a couple of them tomorrow afternoon and go further w/o much delay from the original plan.

[Luis Arteaga]

The liquid organic fertilizer can be UREA, i just have a couple of locals selling them and they all have agree in they use, Urea increase the amount of nitrogen in plants which is good for them, it`s used primarily in the orange crops that we have around here and it`s a organic compound, most of them have been used for UREA transporting althought some of them have been used for fertilizers and something similar to round up, please do some research, it`s probably that  we can used the ones with urea remains w/o harm and if they are good we can have some for not so much.
 
Randall Wimbish said:

I was looking at Florida Craigslist ads in several cities and most of the ads there say that the totes contained liquid organic fertilizers. Wonder what that would be?

[TCLynx]

Everyone must make their own choices.

Now just because something is stamped food grade here in the USA, doesn't mean it can't leach something bad.  Most of our packaged food is packed in stuff that can leach BPA and other stuff and yet those containers are still tagged as food grade by the FDA/USDA.

Now there are nasty chemicals out there (take chlorine for instance) that are transported in containers and barrels.  We would not want to dump that chemical into our aquaponics system but the container that once contained that chemical might be safe enough.  Chlorine is an easy example since it will go away just by letting it air out over time.

There are some fertilizer containers I would feel safe enough using for my home systems (after all those fertilizers are already used to grow food right.)

Herbicides or pesticides are another matter.  I would recommend highly against using any container that once held either of those.

Remember to keep things in perspective.  Certain things can be dangerous for a system (soap or oil) just because very small quantities or residues can kill fish and other aquatic animals.  Other things might have long term ability to impregnate the plastic and leach over a long time but that is actually kinda rare with HDPE plastic that the totes are made of.

The biggest factor is that if you are going commercial, you may want to be very careful of using used/non food grade totes for a commercial system.  What you do at home in your own garden is up to you. 

keep it in perspective.  This might be kinda a side note but I always thought it made a good point  "I've had people worried about using dish soap to clean out a compost bucket because they were worried about he soap residue in the compost some how making it through the composting process and into the plants grown in the compost amended garden and into the food made from those plants without once ever realizing that it's the same dish soap they use every day on their dishes and eat the residue every day from the dishes.  If it's too unsafe for your compost, should you really be using it at all in your house?"

[Luis Arteaga]

Thanks Linx for your comment, i do think that the main factor here is common sense, what you don`t want for yourself don`t utilize for others, price is a factor too, $170.00 for a ibc tank food grade like me too much because for me at least there are a minimun of 4 needed, and i can`t afford more than $700 just for the tanks, so i have to find something cheaper and good enough to grow my fishes and plants, you can help me out in this matter, have you seen or heard of anyone using tanks that have been used for carriying UREA in them for AP? they seen to me non-harmful but i will like to have your opinion and perhaps from others in this forum before i spend again some money in tanks, btw, i have to go with IBC tanks, all my system is designed and built for them.

One other thing you (or somebody else) can help me out, where to buy a ibc valve for a 275 gallon Schutz tank? thanks.

Here is a article from Wikipedia about UREA:

Urea or carbamide is an organic compound with the chemical formula CO(NH₂)₂. The molecule has two —NH₂ groups joined by a carbonyl (C=O) functional group.

Urea serves an important role in the metabolism of nitrogen-containing compounds by animals and is the main nitrogen-containing substance in the urine of mammals. It is solid, colourless, and odorless (although the ammonia that it gives off in the presence of water, including water vapor in the air, has a strong odor). It is highly soluble in water and practically non-toxic (LD50 is 15 g/kg for rat). Dissolved in water, it is neither acidic nor alkaline. The body uses it in many processes, the most notable one being nitrogen excretion. Urea is widely used in fertilizers as a convenient source of nitrogen".

[Dwayne Robinson]

I was actually interested in the same topic. It's extremely hard to find food grade totes at a reasonable price here or at all for that matter and half the people claiming to have food grade don't have labels showing what is consistent with what they say was originally in the container or they just dot know. I found alot of totes that previously contained butanol and just wondering on basic information on how to clean them and if they were safe to use there after.

[TCLynx]

Urea fertilizer has been used by many people to fishlessly cycle up their home aquaponics systems in OZ.  So make your own choice but if it is something that is being used on your food to grow it, how bad do you feel about some of the residues being in your AP system?  Urea is the part of urine (pee) that breaks down into ammonia.

Some people would never dream of peeing in their systems or using Hummonia.  Others, think it's a fine thing.  Again you have to make your own choices and some choices are fine for a personal garden use where they might not be appropriate for a market garden.

[Luis Arteaga]

There are too many questions and reasons about using these containers or not using them, i am taking the safest and secure pad i can think of, knowing than if i sale fish or vegetables to somebody in the future, can lead to questions from people, and there are problematic people who are just born to cause problems to other people, and like Lynx said, just because you use pee to start the bacteria cycle in the water can bring you to court and get a life sentence, not taking risk of any kind, i am putting a 20 mil pond liner from now on in the inside of all mine ibc tanks, (except if i know for sure the food grade origin of the tank) end of discussion, the total cost of the tank with the pond liner in it is going to be close to $90 what is less than the $125-$150 than normally people ask for a food grade container when they appear, i don`t expect nobody making questions about the origin of the tanks if the water is in not contact with them in any form.

Now one of the ideas that has come to me is to cut the side of two tanks (metal and plastic) and putting them togheter side by side covering the inside of the two with the pond liner, this way i can have a tank that can have close to 400 gallons of water from the two ibc containers combined, well they have to be put very well togheter with screws or soldering of some kind, i asume that 400 gallons of water will  exercise a tremendous amount of force to separate the two tanks, i am still figuring out who to make them secure to hold the 400 gallons of water w/o coming apart. Any ideas will be highly appreciate.