Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi
i am new to the AP game and have set up a flow through and flood and drain system. Next i would like to build a tower that houses strawberries. I have build pyramid type structures in the past for soil growth and would like to transform this idea into AP. I have seen some pictures of someone setting one up and was wondering if anyone can give me some advise about some ideas on constructing the water distribution inside of the tower. I generally have a handle on how i want to set everything up exept the interiour of the tower. Any thoughts would be greatly appreicated.
I also know how much everyone loves pictures so i will posting my two previous systems shortly.
thanks
g

Welcome MS!

As far as I know the towers are just squished PVC pipes with gravel in them, can you describe what you mean by a distribution inside the tower?

Hi heres a photo of my tower you hould build it as high as you want its just old beer kegs the water is just distributed over the top and flows down theres no dry spots[ one strawberry plant had over 50 fruit]

are the kegs metal?

Yes stainless steel been there almost 2 years

one last quick question.
I assume that the bottom of kegs have been removed, right? Or are there just holes drilled to allow water to flow through the tower. thanks for the help.
g

MS... quite a few people have constructed strawberry towers out of PVC pipe, even "commercially"....

Here's a link to how Gnash did it ....

viewtopic.php?p=110689#p110689

And recently planted....

viewtopic.php?p=132922#p132922

You bugger just spent 10mins loading up pic's to find you already posted

What I have failed to mention is I could not work out how to stop the hydroton from falling down the water drainage pipe.
After several quiet ales and thoughts of stainless mesh etc the old man looked at it and said "just cut the bottom of some of those plastic plant pots and jam them up there"

Onya DAD works a treat.

You must be adopted

oh, can I have a hand on Saturday arvo

The PVC towers look great but I am trying to make a rather large tower out of blue barrells that are cut in half (from a previous aquaculture project). That's why all the questions about how the larger systems are constructed. I do really like the way that you made the planting sites though. I will post picts of what i am running when i get a chance. thanks
g

Stacked 1/2 blue barrels would be difficult to support, whichever way they are cut, unless they are the ones with a lip around the edge that could be slotted into the next one.

Yeah, just ring