Leroy Thompson's Page

Profile Information

How did you find us?: referral from another website

Are you an aquaponic gardener already?: Yes

If so, what type of system? (pick all that apply): flood and drain media

How old is your system?: 6 mos - 1 yr

What type of fish do you grow with? (select all that apply): Koi, Tilapia

How big is your fish tank?: 5800 gallon in total

Please tell us something else about yourself.: The system I have is quite simple in operation. The main tank is in the ground. THis tank holds two thousand gallons . The capacity of the other five tanks in the system varies in capacity between six hundred and eihhteen hundred gallons.each. Total capacity is six thousand two hundred gallons.The five tanks drains into the main tank from which the water is pumped to gravel beds located on top of a building which partially covers the five secondary tanks. From the gravel beds the filtered water is fed to all the tanks. The flow of water is controlled by means of valves.At present I have four such gravel beds each measuring twenty feet by three feet. all the beds empties into one exit pipe with a main valve controlling water flow. From the pipe which measures one and a half inch in diameter, the water is distributed through threequater inch pi[pes to each tank The main tank gets two such pipes.Bear in mind that all five secondary tanks also empties into the main tank and the cycle repeats itself.Today i planted out pakchoy in two of the gravel beds . eventualy i will cycle the plantings of pakchoy and lettuce in order to have a reaping each week.The main tank has about six hundred male tilapia., the other tanks have koi and sword tails..All the fishes are fed on tilapia ration and does very well..Today i improved the design of the overflow of the main tank so that when rain falls and the tank overflows the water is sucked from the bottom of the tank rather than from the surface as happened previously. every effort will be made to improve the design of the system as time goes on . have to say bye for now .hope you all found the discription of my project interesting. . Bye.

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At 6:59pm on January 20, 2011, Tropical Aquaponics said…: Really impressive my brother. I live in Antigua and I have a very small system compared to what you have. I'm looking to expand to a 500 gallon fish tank but I don't know where to get some male fingerlings; so maybe you can point me into the right direction. I'm growing lettuce, chineese cabbage and tomatoes. They are all growing in a 3.4 X 4.5 X 10" grow bed filled with gravel. It is about 6 moths old since the system has been up and running smooth.

At 9:50pm on November 3, 2010, TCLynx said…: Wow sounds like a big operation

At 7:21pm on November 3, 2010, Sylvia Bernstein said…: Hi Leroy,

Thanks for your outstanding description of your system and thanks for joining the Aquaponic Gardening community! I hope you find it a fun place to explore aquaponics. There is a real blend of experienced and new aquapons in this community, so please don’t hesitate to join in. Always thrilled to have experienced growers join us – please post some photos of your system!

A great place to start is to read the How to Use This Site link on the upper right corner, “Start Here” section of the Main page.

Please add a photo of yourself and participate!

Thanks again for joining us, and I look forward to getting to know you.

Sylvia