Do the solids flush out easily with the knife valve? Do you blow a lot of water flushing, or just replenish as you flush?
Usually the water becomes clear after about 5 gallons of flush. I know that because I used to flush into a 5 gallon bucket, but now it goes straight into a stock tank. My outside circular fish tank is 8 feet in diameter and around 300 gallons. I usually don't top it off for 4 or 5 days, which is when I drain the clarifier tank, clean the netting, and replace the water in the clarifier tank.
Did you ever have any luck with producing decent tomatoes on the rafts?
To be honest I started too late in the year and just started getting tomatoes as the first frost came. I did get outstanding massive plants though. In retrospect even though I started late, it seems the tomatoes came on later than the ones we grow in the ground. But perhaps I had too many plants in the raft tank?
I want to try the intex pool in my non heated pole barn for the winter, but not sure how it would hold up....and yeah, the fiberglass tanks are an investment I am not sure I want to make at this point
My plan is to have the building well insulated and have a south facing trombe wall to use passive heating in the winter. If my primary species in the building are coldwater species then as long as temps stay above freezing I should be good. OTOH would you have reason to believe the vinyl would have issues if it was too cold? Is that what you're concerned about? Perhaps that is a valid concern? I have south facing windows with a cathedral ceiling in my log home, we don't run any heat in the month of October, and sometimes part of November. I've had it get up to 80 F. on that floor on a clear sunny October day when it's in the 60's outside.
My goal is to showcase a system without all the bells and whistles that is totally DIY that runs as efficiently as possible with the lowest amount of overhead. I'd like to produce trophy size brook, brown, rainbow, and tiger trout for my taxidermy niche market. I have a source in Utah that sells the eggs for all those species including triploids. I hatch all my other species so I want to hatch my own trout also.