Recently, as part of my on-going quest to build myself an Aquaponics system at home, I needed to build a strong platform. An IBC tote full of water and fish will be quite heavy (about 2,300 lbs), and 4-5 of them will be that much heavier. For this reason, combined with the fact I live in Florida and we have termites, I decided to build the platform out of pavers.

The design is pretty simple. 5ft deep, 20ft wide, and made up of 12x12 concrete pavers over crushed paver base. I decided to use some pressure treated 2x4s as the sides. The list of materials is below.

The best way I found to do this is to put the surrounding edge pieces in first using the stakes and get them level. In my case, the ground is not real level, so I had to dig a few inches down on the one side and the other side is a few inches above the ground.

Next step is to dig out/fill in the interior of the frame. Again, in my case, things are not level so I ended up excavating from one area and putting it in the other.

After getting your area leveled out, go ahead and put the weed block down. I immediately poured a few bags of paver base on it around the sides so that the weed block stays in place.

Patio edges showing weed block and paver base. Patio edges showing weed block and paver base.

After that it was a matter of pouring lots of paver base into the opening and getting it leveled off. Make sure to use a tamper to compact the base so it does not settle. Now that we have a level surface, start putting the pavers down.

Last step is to put some 2x4s around the sides to finish the edges. Check out the pictures below to see the details better.