Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thank You Gnoib, A big part of my life I have done rock as my DIY home building. I had gotten so out of shape and in a bad head place, I hadn't done rock-work in decades. I'm happy to say after quiting a few bad habits I managed to turn my life around and got into doing things right, again, Hope and dogged determination are, it seems paying off, that and the need to make up for lost time, are keeping me going!

Actual fiberglass cloth? One layer. Coats of resin? One coat before the cloth, another after we put the cloth. I could afford only one gallon (3.8 liters.) Obviously it was inadequate. Could have easily used two of that size. The cloth came donated in a huge roll, so we used so much it soaked up too much resin. After the first bed my son cut the full sheets like we had covering the first one, for the next three. That stretched the resin for the next and the next. I tend to do my projects in a production style, so we constructed the four boxes all at once, on one day, painted the another, and fiberglassed them a few days later. On the last one we were running out of resin, so I'm thinking about putting a coat of the Herco on that one to be certain they'll hold water. The 45 mm hole saws are arriving today. I'll start building four auto siphons and get those installed and do a water leak test on all of them, then decide if any need a touch-up.

Brian (old computer ) Rodgers

I'm jealous of your country living, but then realize it must suck not being able to run down to Home Depot and get parts for a project. Or call my local auto parts store when we're working on a truck, and have them deliver our parts in 15 minutes. I guess you trade off things out there. It sounds like your getting very close!

Indeed so many trade offs for so many years I've gotten used to it. Back in the day we used to bug each other saying, "make every trip count, haul a load each way, no dead heads." I was a rule breaker. I drove family's 1953 chevy 1 ton dump truck in for one Friday night in town. Twisted the drive shaft showing off. Caught some yelling at from Dad for that excapade.

Trying to do hole shots with a dump truck Brian. How old were you? 17? I got a ticket riding a wheelie down our main drag in high school. It was pretty cool, until I saw the cop coming out of the sidestreet. I knew I was going to get a ticket. Tried to tell him it was accidental and the bike was just "too fast" and the front end "came off the ground too easy". He said he saw me hit 2nd and third gear while on the back wheel, and then wrote the ticket. I wheelied a lot after that, but only on my dirt bike, or at least almost always.

I arrived here at my parents ranch from Long Beach California when I was 18 and the draft board started to take notice of me.That attempted wheelie was made sometime before I turned 21, drinking age when the real showing off phase of my life started. This morning I built my first bell siphon, and yay, it worked!!!

Above you can see the stand-pipe connected to a 1" (15.4 mm) bulkhead connector.

The bell is made from 1" (38 mm) pipe. I wanted to see if the slightly larger that the stand-pipe bell would work. I guess it did.

The media guard is made of 3" (76 mm) pipe. I still need to buy tops for all four GB siphons. I made the 1.5" end cap with a heat gun and PVC solvent. I still wonder about the bottom end cap with the 45 mm hole in it for the bulkhead connector? It seemed to work fine with it sitting on the bottom of the GB
I can see why the inflow needs to be adjusted so the siphon breaks before the water comes in and drives the level up past the siphon break

Brian,

Drill a hole in an end cap to locate your media guard and that will allow you to twist it and cut off any root growth.

Holy cow, we splashed in 200 gallons of water from the sump tank into the pond! I think, hope every thing is done in the pond, if not I'll buy a new snorkel and mask, hehe, yeah right, buy it now buddy.




Yep, Mister Bells and Whistles installed the underwater LED lights

wait... wait for it....
okay it's ready

YEAH! Water! Congrats Brian!

thanks Coach & Joeblow

600 gllons (2271 liters) and counting. maybe 1/3rd full.

Got to love when the water starts to flow! Great stuff Brian and congrats. I've said it before, astounding system!

My two cents as well on the siphon guard, put a bigger hole both sides on the top you can put a big screwdriver thru, that way you can use it to twist it. Sometimes with rock it can be hard to move. If that doesn't make sense let me know, I'll take a pic


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah



Fantastic Brian.

Weve got water!!!

Brian you'll need an underwater sound system to match your lights