Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Holly guacamoly now thats a tower system and yep there all concave, shizen.
Hope they have an underground return line.

What can I say, Jaymie, umm, nice pipes.

thanks

Tidy set-up Jay.
very impressed

Showed my wife that picture of the strawberries.
I am now under instructions to include a wall of strawberries in our (my?) AP setup.

stuart

Jay you got a really neat setup there i will be watching your grow 'play by play' so remember to keep us updated.

nice one Jay!

man if you scroll that photo up and down real qiuck it makes you dizzy!

TT, the water flows continuously through the tube and out the drain holes in the bottom (see the picture of the end cap with holes in it). It just trickles gently down through the gravel. If it starts to fill the tube because the drain holes plug, that's bad, but in my system it would flow out the next grow hole and run down the tube into the funnel, thence back into the tank. The flow rate is not very high so it would take a nearly complete blockage to cause trouble.

If you want to build your own, click here to download my plans drawn with Google SketchUp, and then you can modify the design to suit. The plans are free and I wouldn't patent it even if I could, because this is a hobby and I don't need another job. The construction is fairly basic but the tubes and (eventual) plants weigh about 250 pounds so it needs to be well supported. I wouldn't make the tubes much taller than this or they'll be difficult to move, unless you fill them with something lighter than gravel.

I think that this approach would make a nice alternative to a home greenhouse, because a vertical wall of windows is much cheaper to build and to heat than a glass roof, and a "greenwall" takes far less floor area. If you have a sunny wall of windows big enough for a couple dozen tubes you could grow a lot of food in a relatively small space.

Man they're pretty heavy!

Jay, I am wondering how easily the hoses will clog - I am using 1/2" tubing and the flow has slowed down a lot with the biofilm constricting the hoses.

The five tubes will be about 250 pounds total (not each), since they weigh 40 apiece now and I figure an extra 10 pounds apiece for veggies plus extra water that will be retained when the gravel is full of roots.

My tubing is 3/8" I.D. so clogging could become a problem if the film gets heavy enough. I used black tubing rather than clear so at least it won't build up algae inside, but it will make it hard to tell if there's a buildup until the flow slows down.

Flex tubeing is nice in that when you see the flow slowing you can just squeeze the tubeing a bit and dislodge the biofilm build up. The time frame for this will of course depend on your flow rates, tubing size... blah, blah, blah.
Are the tubes easy to turn then Jay?

Yes GF, the grow tubes are easy to turn. I try to lift them a little to take some weight off the funnel so I don't wear it down but they seem to slide fine either way. I may have to replace the funnels in a year or so if they wear out from turning the grow tubes but at $0.59 apiece it's not a big deal. The main hassle would be replacing the center funnel because I had to modify it to divert water around the center support of the tank:



I just cut off the spout and cut a hole in the side, then "welded" it back together using a soldering iron. It took a while (and one very mutilated funnel) to get the hang of it but now that I'm an experienced plastic funnel welder I can make a new one in a few minutes.

Thanks Jay, got a sunny north facing wall with a 4ft gap b/n it and the property boundary. I figure if i can build a solid support structure that doesn't hang off the wall but is supported by it, it is strawberries for life, winter or summer!
I am having trouble opening your file. It seemed to download ok, but can't open it. Will keep trying.
Continued good luck to you, I presume it is your company that manufactures the pipes we saw in the early photos.
Tragic.

Tragic, I tried downloading the file and it opens okay for me. Give it another try and if it doesn't work, I'll try publishing it some other way or I can email it directly if you wish.

I bought the pipe at Home Depot and I have no affiliation with J-M Manufacturing but I thought it was funny so I left the printing on the pipes.

Jay... link takes me to main download page for "sketchup" software not to your downloadable sketchup file....