Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

OK, so I'm sure there are a million reasons NOT to get involved with ferro-cement. It probably hurts the environment, facilitates child sweat shops, kills baby seals or some such thing. And I'm just as sure that there are a million reasons NOT to use it in AP systems however, I'm addicted!! We've been building grow bins from ferro-cement and are about to start on our 400 gal fish tank and its sooo simple, it just makes me think about what else I could build with it. I already have plans to build a small hut that I will use as my office. There are just a million things I could do. Another thing I want to build is a water catchment system.

Soooo, I'm telling you, DON'T buy the first bag of portland cement, or pick up the first trowel unless you want to start down the dark lonely road!

Tony

How exactly do you do it Tony?

Got any pics?

Photos, we love photos

Papercrete would be a good alternative for the office/hut as you`d gain more insulation value.

I think i may use nylon-cement for my pie shaped growbeds, i could use small screw-in hooks to hold the netting in place initially to keep it taut and also create a small spacing from the timber joists/clay floor. Nylon netting is very cheap compared to chicken wire.
http://www.angelfire.com/in2/manythings ... CEMENT.htm
http://www.instructables.com/id/ZIPPER- ... ing-Nylon/

Would it be possible to use wire, instead of mesh, to reinforce the cement? Would just laying the wire on top of each other, without weaving it together or welding it, work as well? I wonder if that would still give it enough strength. Or is there an easy way to quickly weave some sort of mesh, maybe twisting together big coils of metal wire? I have many rolls of aluminium and stainless steel welding wire lying around, as well as lots of galvanised steel binding wire... All of which I got quite cheap, so I can experiment with that. Maybe I'll weave something together to try out ferrocement!

Ugh, well thanks for the warning... Hope I don't get addicted to another strange hobby...

Hi Thomas
How about this approach?
http://harmoniouspalette.com/ringforcement.html

Wow, that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! Thanks a bunch!

Here are two pictures. I would love to give more but I'm too tired of arguing with the BYAP upload program. I will have figure out a kindler gentler way to provide pictures for this upload.
T.

So this ferro-cement stuff. Does it hold water? Are you sealing it to protect the fish? If so, with what? Does it require wires or can it just be schlapped against a dirt wall and stay there?

Done properly ferro-cement can be waterproof Kuda... mind you, when the craze was on for ferro-cement yatchs... quite a few didn't get past their maiden voyage...

Hey Kuda
Can it be Ferro-cement without the Ferro?

NFI... I'm looking for info here. Straight cement is not great for that kind of thing though. Too sloppy and too weak.

Kuda - wot they are getting at is that the ferro in ferro cement indicates the presence of iron (as in ferrous).

I had assumed it had something to do with iron. But I still don't get why anybody's asking me questions. I've poured a couple of slabs in my life, but this is completely different.
For example other than the presence of iron, what makes ferro cement different to normal cement? ie what effect does the iron have ?