Goal: Perfect Barrel-based Aquaponics

[Dylan]

Hello everyone,

I am very glad to find that this community exists and already you all have help me make my aquaponics system start coming to life, but I'm finding it hard to find definitive answers to questions as they pertain to the particular system I want to build so I'd like to start a discussion about my system here.  I would appreciate any and all criticism of my system.  I'm working with a very limited budget and I am a bit of a perfectionist so I would like to try to make my system and solid and well thought out as possible.

So far I have 2 55 gallon HDPE barrels (one with a removable top).  I had planned on splitting the sealed barrel in half and creating two grow beds out of it while using the other barrel as the fish tank standing up-right.

The image below describes my basic system:

The second water tank was the only way I could think of to make the water level in the fish tank not drop so much when pumping water into the beds since this is a flood and drain setup, but even then, the fish tank will drop to half level.  In anyones experience, does that upset the fish?  Can anyone suggest a better way of curbing the water level decrease?

The fish will be put in the second tank (the one without the pump) so that the noise of the pump is not as loud, but I wonder if the fish would like the drain to be in their tank.  Also, is it necessary to put the drain in there tank so the water (and the DO) circulate through the system better?

I'm also concerned about a bio filter.  How necessary is it and where would be a good place to put it in my system?

I'm planning on using gravel as a medium (mainly because it will be cheaper to get 55 gallons of) and possibly putting some earthworms in my beds to help things along.  Anyone have any advice/tips based on that info?

Any and all help is very very much appreciated.  Thank you all for building this community and offering yourselves up as a resource.  Once I am knowledgable on the subject, I definitely plan to do the same. :D

[Larry Dale Smith]

If the second barrel is used to keep the first topped off, some way of regulating it will need to be used, such as maybe a swamp-cooler filler float valve with it hooked in some how on the main barrel tank to fill it,,,,maybe it could be to operate a vent line to allow the water to be siphoned from the second barrel?

[Todd Sowell]

Thanks Jon. I thought Travis was being a little over the top but that makes it much clearer.

Jon Parr said:

Yea, you missed it, Todd. The post has been edited, the original read something like 'barrel-ponics done right'.

[Dylan]

Thank you everyone for your input.  I really do appreciate it.  I'll be building my system over then next few days and I'll take pictures as I go.  If I run into any problems I'll post back here with either a solution or another request for help.

Cheers

[Larry Dale Smith]

Best of luck, with any new task there is always a big chance for un-for-seen difficulties, just have to have the perseverance to overcome them, not sure about my float valve idea, I'm still too new at this and don't know how the plumbing on these works yet,,,,it might end up over filling the tank barrel when you drain the water from the grow barrel halves, if you want to try to incorperate it you'll have to figure out a way around that.

[TCLynx]

Link to Travis' manual
Here is a link to a page where you can get to Travis Hughey's wonderful Manual It is below the picture of my first aquaponics system build based on his manual.

Definitely stick with small fish in an upright barrel fish tank (and I've never really liked the barrel on it's side fish tank since I can never see the fish in there very well.

Here is a link to some diagramsthat might help with some of the other ideas people have mentioned here.

and more diagrams