talk to me about barrel fish... (fish raised in a barrel)

Several years ago my DH got bored and dug a pond in the back yard. Because of this we had to put stockade fencing around the yard, but I digress. He used the dirt from the pond to create a hill, which hid the pipe thing that went from the pond pump, up to the top of the hill and into a 100 gal water trough. The water spilled from the 100 gallon down to a 50 gallon, and then spilled down into the pond. The water troughs had lava rock in them and acted as a filter. We had swamp plants growing in the lava rock and also in pots on top of the rock. Quite pretty. The fish fertilized the plants, the plants took nutrients from the water, and the whole waterfall thing aerated the water.

The first year he put a huge plastic cover over it all and we had a little Shangra La going on. After that, he didn't cover it. Most of the fish survived the winters (one winter was very long and we lost a few). We had goldfish and koi in the pond. One nice thing was we no longer had mosquitos as the mosquitos laid their eggs in the pond instead of the puddles and of course the fish ate them.

I'm sure the same set up would work with edible plants and different fish.

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Nothing is as strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength - St. Francis de Sales

I currently am working on an aquaponics project also. I have it a bit farther along than this picture.



I will post some new pics in a day or so. I have a concrete tank with 50 or so trout in it. It flows out to a radial flow filter which pulls out the solids. It then goes into a insulated ibc sump tank which has strapping in it for bacteria surface area. It then is pumped up to the floating raft growbeds which drains back into the trout tank. I will update later with some pictures of the final arrangement.

-Mallow

One coolish summer when my kids where little, I used an small sump pump and lots of black garden hose to help keep the pool warmer. Plus the big black tarp on it. I put the hoses on the roof so that they absorbed some of that heat as well. At least here, electricity is cheap so it worked to keep the kiddos happy.

Another idea would be to find a wood burning stove that heats water for flooring heat or hot tubs. Several different types out there. If you can find the stoves cheap, the cost of heating would be lower if you have access to wood.

Just some ideas!

Carrie in SD

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