Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

unny you should mention those red straps...going to pick up a fire hydrant this evening and need to find some of those to secure it to the dolly.....don't ask...

Oh I won't ask... Prefer to speculate outrageously.

Drat, that same shower drain leaked around the pipe even after loading the topside gap with silicone.
Gonna cut it out (yes I glued some of it) and take it back, will attack this again... will try to get some gravel wet some time next week.

And my DWV -> yard drain junction perpetually drips. Need some tips for making that bridge. I'm sticking my Schedule 40 2" PVC into Sch 40 4" Tee and that's fine, but my long 4" run is the thin yard-drain (more affordable) stuff.
I get the Big Shrug from every sales associate at every store when I ask about connecting Sch 40 into the yard drain pipes. Even the bell end of the 4" yard drain is too small for a good junction to the female 4" Sch 40 opening. I wrapped stretch silicone tape around the yard drain bell and it still goes drip drip drip...
I just don't believe I have to stay with Sch 40 (Thicker, heavier, much $$$ier) all the way along my fence back to the pond. Doesn't Fernco or somebody make a bl◊◊dy adapter so as to connect the two disparate worlds?

as far as I know, no reputable (and even most disreputable) plumbing supplies will provide an adaptor from pressure to dwv. they are considered completely different worlds. however, I have seen on some slip type bush adaptors that may advertise that they will work, although I cant find a link handy.

best option may be a pressure faucet fitting to dwv male iron fitting? plenty of teflon tape on the threads (or maybe even plumbing glue?) and it may seal.

I don't know about the 4" stuff.

But I have glued 3" sch 40 fittings onto 3" sewer fittings. I found that if you pretend the outside of the sewer fitting is the "pipe" and then the sch 40 fitting will fit over it enough and can be glued.

I know that in the past I claimed I didn't like to glue gravity drains. However, I've found that the sewer pipe (I've mostly used the 3") doesn't seal well enough most of the time so I've used PVC cement on most of the 3" pipe I have around even if there isn't any pressure. Even my NFT pipes are glued cause they would drip constantly otherwise.

You mention the shower drain where you put the 2" pipe through and it has a compression ring in it. I think those are meant to have a plastic threaded ring tightened down onto them to cause the compression that should stop them from dripping. I don't think you can tighten them down with the pipe sticking all the way through. Of course I'm not looking at the fitting your are using or the parts with it so I could be wrong here.

Good luck sorting out the leaks

No, that's exactly what it is. There's instructions to that effect, on the strainer piece that was the first thing removed...

And yeah, the pipe gets in the way. Who'd ever want a standpipe in their shower?
A wrench can be rigged up to tighten around the protruding pipe.

I will have to decide to cut the second GB on the bottom like this one, or do a side fitting drain -> elbow -> standpipe like your 100s. Both sides, and Y them into a 3" line?

I finally got around to using that expanded shale this weekend...dirty stuff! It took 4 or 5 times as much water to wash as compared to the river gravel. It also had so much fine meterial in it that makes using it fairly troublesome. Did you find that the truck load was different or similar to the bagged stuff?

There's a lot of dust/fines in the truckload too. Considering the price paid.
I am sifting it dry to keep just the over-1/4-inch pieces for the growbeds, the fines fill a wheelbarrow for about every 4-5 wheelbarrows of the "keeper" media.
I take the discard though, mix it with compost and put it elsewhere in the landscaping. So far everything just loooves that mix. And the "keeper" AP media looks like it will work size-wise.

Since I am presifting, I won't have all that amount of dust coming off the media. I expect to have some, but I found that dry expanded shale comes cleaner faster than wet shale. I think the stuff actually 'inhales' the water and sucks the dust in. You can wash it and wash it and wash it and still detect dust. Sifting it dry, there's a point where no more dust sifts out...

Put together my diverter valve assembly this weekend. Straight up 2m from pump in a milk crate in pond, 1.5" PVC to a big Jandy Valve hung on the fence to split and balance the flow two ways, into 1" HDPE, one to GBs and one to the bottom of pond to agitate. That valve is really cool.
So will try to get the GBs plumbed up this week so I can start filling with sifted shale media. Have to bend a pair of tongs into a shower-drain wrench so I can tighten drains around my standpipes.

Oh, and I still have toads. Big time.
They held "concerts" the last three nights, adding many many strings of eggs to the gajillion tadpoles already wiggling in the pond from last week's post-rain amphibian rituals.
Houston Toad
Toadaponics will rule the day for a while, I'll proceed with getting 600 Gallons of filtration GB on line. I'll install some Channel Cats after the new crop of toads have hopped off into the sunset.

Tad poles probably make pretty good catfish feed.

Probably! But I credit these critters (the leggy, hopping version) with keeping my yard flea-free.
And, you know, that Endangered Species thingy too...

Pictures...

Water + Gravity and a fenceline

Pond -> Diverter -> pond + GB
still need media in the second GB

Planted w/mix of seeds and .99c transplantz