As many people may know, I’m fond of using stock tanks for many things. However, I can’t even break even trying to sell Rubbermaid stock tanks so I’ll send you to tractor supply to buy those. And lets face it, the stock tanks are a little bit on the shallow side to use as fish tanks so I’ve found a beautiful alternative.
Duracast Tanks
At least I think it’s beautiful, the blue is bright and cheery and makes it easy to view the fish. The depth is perfect to allow 300 gallons of water and some height of tank above the water to help keep the fish from jumping out. The height is also very good for netting fish without risk of falling in or needing to be on a bench to reach and see.
Now contact me if you are interested in other sizes but 300 gallons of water is the smallest I like to go for a stand alone system fish tank outdoors here in Florida. I fear the smaller size (like he 210 gallon tank that would probably only hold 150-175 gallons of water) would likely heat up far too much here in summer but I can sell them if you really want them, I’ll get you a price (or if it is part of a bigger system the temperature may not be such a problem.) And there are larger tanks but again the ones for 300 gallons of water are a really suitable size for a medium backyard aquaponics system. Let me know what you are interested in and I’ll help you find the most cost effective solution for your situation.
tank with spray swirl
This is called a 410 gallon tank but it is the perfect container for 300+ gallons of fish water and it is the tank I’m currently using for my Tower system. The inside diameter is 61 1/2 inches and it’s 34 1/2 inches high. Blue or Granite are the standard colors but other colors may be possible for a price. These are FDA approved Polyethylene tanks.
Contact me (note that you are interested in Tanks in the form) if interested in this size tank which I can sell for $505.95 plus shipping/delivery and tax. Now the Freight on such a tank is going to be steep so I really only expect to sell them to people close enough to pick up or I may even be able to do personal delivery (like if you purchase as part of a system design/install.) I don’t have a pile of these sitting around so I will need some lead time to have them made to order.
What is the design purpose for the vertical pipe in your picture of the blue tank with the spray swirl. It appears to be part of the drain system for the tank. Does its design create suction at the bottom of the tank to draw waste out to media bed. I’m setting a tank up wondered why, or is that just support to get the overflow to center of the tank. THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your response. George
Hi George,
Yes the vertical pipe is indeed a part of the Drain. There is a grate at the bottom to keep the bottom opening of the pipe just up off the bottom of the tank and keep fish out of the drain. This design is what we call a SLO Drain or Solids lifting overflow drain. By having the T you avoid siphoning the tank dry and also have the added overflow protection in case the bottom part of the drain were to get clogged by leaves or something. Here is an example diagram with a SLO drain. In most of my tanks I try to have it near the center of the tank but I have had systems where it is near the side and it still worked fairly well.
The diagram you have of a SLO Drain or Solids lifting overflow drain looks great to me but I question if it really does lift the solid waste out of the tank. This would solve so many of my problems if it did. Where does the suction come from to lift the waste?
Thanks for your time.
Susan
Hi Susan,
Yes the SLO drains do remove solids from the tank, however, if your solids are settling to the bottom of the tank away from the intake for the SLO Drain, those solids probably won’t be “sucked” out. Part of the trick is to try and swirl or move the solids to collect at the drain so that as the water level in the tank rises, causing the water to need to get OUT by flowing into the bottom of the SLO and rising up the SLO to reach the overflow it will draw the solids out along with the water.
I can attest that lots of solids do leave the fish tank via a SLO drain, however the nature of the solids may also have an effect. If you have minimal flow through your fish tank, and little to no fish stirring the tank, then it is likely that some solids are going to settle and not be drawn out. Or if there are heavy solids like gravel, sand, sticks, stone chips, etc in the tank then I wouldn’t really expect much of that to be lifted by the water out of the tank. fish poo and fish food tends to be fairly light and easily suspended and so they move out of a tank fairly well if the currents and flows tend to swirl the tank such that the solids try to collect at the center or where the SLO drain intake is.
For a Square tank (IBC) I set it up with the SLO in the Middle and in two corners I placed air stones and in the other two corners I sprayed the water feed to the tank down so it created a natural circulation around the tank that didn’t let the solids collect in the corners.
The SLO drain doesn’t so much have “suction” like a pump or a vacuum but rather is the path for the water to leave the tank. The amount of flow up the SLO is going to be directly proportional to the Flow into the tank but with a slight delay or lag time.
TCL
do you use auto syphons or is this set up a constant flow, it appears that either would work.
The tanks have an overflow that I call a Solids Lifting Overflow (SLO) You do not want your fish tank to siphon so you put a T at the top of the overflow to make sure air can get in to keep it from becoming a siphon.
As for the grow beds in that diagram, they could be constant flow auto siphon flood and drain, or the system could run constant flow constant flood with stand pipes minus the bells, or even have some with siphons and some can run constant flow/flood. Or you could run the pump on a timer and do timed flood and drain by having stand pipes with small holes near the bottom in the grow beds.
There are so many ways it can work.
For my systems, I actually have a little of everything going on around here. I have some systems that use siphons, some systems have constant flow/flood beds and other systems are doing timed flood and drain.
Looking for similar tank, but larger is better to help maintain temp in hot summers. I live in St George, UT. I am building a 40 foot diameter geodesic dome with almost 1500 sq feet of deep water raft aquaponic grow beds. If you know of a source of a tank in this area, please let me know. Been searching for quite a while.
Search for plastics roto-molding companies in your region and then call them up and ask about their aquaculture tanks. The really big problem with such tanks is they are not cheap to ship. (Heavy stuff is expensive to ship and bulky stuff is expensive to ship, the tanks fit the “bulky stuff” description.)
Greetings from St Maarten in the Caribbean. Our school is planning to set up an aquaponics program. We need to source 300gallon thanks like we see here. Can you direct us to the source?
garfield
I recommend looking up large rotomolding plastics companies and ask about their aquaculture tanks, sometimes you can get lucky and get some factory seconds if your timing is good and you have a local company. Otherwise you have to deal with freight to get them to your location.
If you have any farm/feed type stores on the Island, perhaps they will have stock tanks that might work for your purpose. Just make sure that you line or coat any metal stock tanks with a potable water safe coating or liner since galvanized coatings become toxic to fish.
Solids Lifting Overflow (SLO)has been mentioned here – While it may be of advantage (for the fish) to rid the tank free from suspended solids, would this not in anyway get to accumulate (the solids) in the growbed and totally clog the system in the end?
If you have ample amounts of media filled grow beds for the amount of fish you have, then NO, the solids won’t totally clog the grow beds. However, if you have too many fish or are feeding them too much for the amount of grow beds you have, then you are likely to have clogging and water quality problems no matter what you do.
No matter what, you can’t go leaving the solids in the fish tank because that will kill your fish far faster than it would clog your grow beds.
Looking for 7′ fish tank netting.
You may be able to find that at Aquatic Eco Systems. I don’t currently have any in stock.
I am wanting to set up a Aquaponic system in our little 10’x12′ greenhouse. This will be my testing ground before moving into a larger semi-commercial setup. I want to know what you would recommend to us in the way of a tank for raising Tilapia? I want to run the water throughout our hydroponic system, returning back to the aquatank. I love your 300 gallon tank. I would need to consider constant water temps when raising the Tilapia too. Thank you for any advice you can give me.
I really like the 410 (which I usually think of as a 300 gallon tank) but that is going to take up a lot of space in a 10′ by 12′ greenhouse and not leave you much space for the plant beds and filtration (which you would need quite a bit of unless you can restrain yourself and only sock a very small quantity of fish.) And raising tilapia will require heating unless you are in a tropical location. You didn’t tell me where you are located so I can’t really advise on keeping the water temps in range. Since heating is likely to be needed anyway, perhaps for such a small footprint, an IBC fish tank might be more appropriate for this set up.
Good morning. .. I’m in Florida. .. tropical… I want to setup an aquaponic system for a 10×12 small floating green house. .. the fisheries will be outside of the house what ZISE of tank do you recommend an how many fish for leaf vegetables beds?
I don’t know what you mean by floating greenhouse.
But if you are planning a very simple system only using media beds for the filtration (as in no separate bio-filters, settling tanks, solids removal devices etc) then you need to figure on no more than 1 lb of fish MAX per cubic foot of flood and drain media bed that is in the greenhouse. So if you made it a very crowded greenhouse, you might have perhaps 68 cubic feet of gravel beds if they are 1′ deep. But you don’t have to have that many fish to keep 500 gallons worth of gravel beds chocked full of plants. You could Run such a system using an IBC fish tank and if you are flooding/draining you would then also want an IBC worth of sump tank. I Like to have at least 5 gallons of fish tank per fish that might grow to 1 lb so in a 200-250 gallon IBC fish tank I wouldn’t stock more than 30-50 fish that stay under 1 lb (like tilapia or bluegill) At least for your first season growing fish.
Personally I usually grow Channel Catfish that get quite big and for them I like to have at least a 300 gallon fish tank and I may only stock one fish per 10 or 20 gallons of fish tank.
Hi,
I’ve been looking high and low in the SF Bay area for a tank like your beautiful 410 gallon blue poly. What brand is that? Do you happen to know a supplier on the West Coast. Thanks for the inspiration!
John
It is a DuraCast tank, they are are a Rotomolding company here in Florida. I do not know of any suppliers on the West Coast but I’m sure there are some.
Hi my name is Luke and our school is doing a project with aquaponics and etc. I was wondering if you have more buckets to keep fish in and how much they would be im on a school budget.do you charge for shipping and I don’t know yet the budget
Hi Luke,
I don’t have “Buckets” for fish. What kind of fish are you talking about that could be kept in a bucket? If it is a small type of fish appropriate to keep in a bucket, I suggest you go to grocery stores/bakery/etc and ask for the used food buckets that you can then wash out and use for your system. They are generally free that way.
As for the tanks and any containers I would sell, yes I do need to charge for shipping since that often costs almost as much as the container.
Thanks for the information! I was wondering how much the Duracast Tanks cost and i’m thinking about putting tilapia in the tanks what would be the best
The price on the 410 gallon Duracast tank is about $500 but that doesn’t cover the Freight.
ok thanks
I’m interested in your blue pool. It appears to be perfect for what we are seeking to go outside in our Michigan yard. I need a quote please.
That tank is a 410 gallon tank. Current price is about $510 plus freight. The freight cost to ship from FL to Michigan may be a bit higher than you are interested in. You may be able to get something similar closer to home if there are any rotomolding companies closer to you. To get a freight quote please use the contact form to give me your address.
I have a idea to help with your flow to make sure that the solid waste is taken care of make the bottom of your tank slightly cone shaped sure you have to put it on a stand but all of the waste will settle in the one spot. this will make for a very clean tank.
They do make cone bottom tanks and you do need to have a stand to support them. These are not cone bottom tanks though.
Do these have the hole for pumps? or can be customized for different design?
They do not come with the holes drilled since different set ups will require different plumbing configurations.