Aquaponic Gardening

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  SO I got this amazing garage sale find! A 40-50 gallon acryllic salt water tank.  For $10!  No leaks! When I told the peopel what I wanted it for they threw in the filter system too, for free.

   It has the looks of a great breeding/rearing tank..for tilapia...or (any suggestions)?  If not, I'll let our oldest kiddo have it for his trout project.

   It came with a very not-cleaned filter system.  A bio-filter...it has these funny looking blue balls with slits all over them.  I understand the basic concept of a bio-fiter having a bactia build-ip on the balls to handle the filtering...What I want to know (hopefully someone here has saltwater tank experience) is , is it possible to clean out the filters and then use it for fresh water fish culture?  Any pointers?

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I had originally planned to just make use of the tank.  Then after the bio-filter was thrown in the deal, it seemd to open up a few more possibilities. ...Any pointers?

Converse, I would sterilize everything, before using anything, Boil the bioballs and bleach the tank. Then its like starting with new stuff. $10 bucks was a great deal!!

Or instead of bleach, you could use hydrogen peroxide.Probably not necessary to boil the bio-balls if you sterilize them using hydrogen peroxide or bleach (one or the other never mix)

The equipment should all be usable for regular aquaponics once cleaned.

All I can say about the price is...wow!! That's a great find!

I don't have experience with salt water tanks. I know they usually have sumps, but in AP sumps are used to keep tanks at a constant level, and in salt tanks I believe they're used for bio filtering, nitrate control, and mineral stabilization. But what do I know?

We're breeding in a 75 gal freshwater tank, but we started in a 30 gal tank. I'm sure you can use the saltwater tank for breeding maybe 6 - 8" tilapia. 

  Thank you all for your pointers.  Yes..Wow!  That's what I thought.  The tank was not set up, and had obviously not been set up for a while. Thus, I really am not sure how it all works together (figured I could find out  doing a search online). Thanks for the explanation of the sumps for saltwater vs. fresh.  And thanks for the pointers about cleaning.  I know what I am going to be doing today...

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