Hi Jock,
it's been a howler, hasn't it? not ideal for work outside.
Polytunnel itself isn't up yet, as I have been working on everything that would be easier to do with access to the outside of the beds..
That doesn't mean that nothing has happened, of course, just some back breaking labour, digging through the famed "80% rocks" ARgyll soil.
After giving the plumbing a once over (no leaks, yay!) and running a good few cycles through, I started filling the growbeds; First, I added a 15cm thick layer of gravel;
then spread it about evenly (mostly; it's built up slightly around the media guard pipe;
once the gravel was in, I added about 3-3.5 bags of LECA into each growbed;
Couple of nice wee things in this image; I added some climaflex insulation (22-13 1m lengths) to protect the metal edges of the IBC; no matter how many razor sharp edges I smoothed off with the angle grinder and a file, my knuckles kept finding more; none since I added the "soft play" edges.
I had a couple of dry (but crazy windy) days, so started getting the growbeds painted to prevent algae growth. I started green;
then switched to Black for a more opaque finish;
Also in this image - a properly plumbed in overflow for the Sump, leading to my garden drainage, rather than letting it overflow in the soil around it; That was having the predicted effect of causing a lot of slump;
That, and it's a lot better since I mixed a wet slurry of grano and chucked it into the gaps when the Sump was full; don't seem to be getting slumping now
Focus is now on services (electrical, mostly);
Once that's into the polytunnel, I have a wee services board to put a garage kit RCD onto to keep everything safe and up to 17th Edition code...
and a couple of things to make life a bit simpler, like adding a bypass to allow me to divert some of the pump's output back into the sump;
Everything is looking okay for getting the roof on reasonably soon. Next calm dry day, probably.
The big problem I have next is getting the water clean; the dirty water in the pics was *after* pre-washing the gravel and leca (itself a horrible job).
I maybe just need to let the system run, but I am seeing no evidence of it getting clearer. The swirl "filter" doesn't seem to do anything. Here's a view;
I originally used 40mm in and 40mm out; the flow rate is too high to keep up, so I added a 50mm outlet and capped the 40mm one; that keeps up, but the water coming out is as brown and dusty as the stuff going in. I don't think the water is lingering long enough to settle out any solids!
Weighing up my options; I am considering buying a cheap (large) aquarium filter from ebay knowing that running my system clean will probably kill it... might be worth the hassle. it's either that or emptying the system and re-filling with water from the stream (and hoping that's clean enough...)
The best deal for tank connectors and the like I found was a UK ebay seller "koi-and-ponds". no daft shipping surcharges for Argyll.
The other one was "garetstann" - they do 'MEGA fittings packs" of solvent weld fittings. I contacted them and asked if they would do a custom pack for me, which they did; the bits I asked for, paid for one of their 'packs'. Got a whole pile of 40mm and 50mm pipe from them as well, cheaper than screwfix!
Hope that helps.
T.
Backyard Aquaponics
