Neat operation Cecil.
I gave one of my IBC tank systems to my younger son this past spring. I got tilapia from Rex that I divided between my two ponds and the aquaponics tank.
The little 4'x4'x7" bed of small river rock produced beyond my expectations, and it is still producing. In that small space he had one each Early Girl, Big Boy, and Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato plant. He also had a California Wonder bell pepper and a jalapeno pepper plant. I'm not sure how many cucumber plants, but about 3-4. Everything produced like crazy -- they actually had more cucumbers than they knew what to do with. (I just finished fermenting and "putting up" up 8 of 10 gallons of cucumber pickles/relish/etc., from my garden - so I don't need any more!). Early in the season, while we were getting it setup, he harvested lettuce.
Early on, we had a few problems with fish mortality. I'm still not sure why. The water quality seemed to be very good. As far as I can tell, all of the small bluegill died. I think the fatheads got eaten by the bluegill before the bluegill disappeared. While this was happening, my son put in about a dozen $0.10 goldfish. A few died, but most have thrived. I don't know what my grand daughter will do with them when it comes time to shut down for the winter. The 2-3 inch tilapia are now 6-7 inches.
My son and 10 y.o., grand daughter are excited by the experience. My DIL has been happy to have fresh cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. We learned a lot. Next year we will probably make the grow beds bigger.
Anyway, yours looks fantastic.
P.S. There was an article in this week's local newspaper about all of the aquaponics projects in our local area. The locals have been producing very significant quantities of good quality marijuana.
