Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks Richard,
Spot on about the slope, it definately made it alot easier to get the GB's elevated above the FT, take my hat off to all the guys digging holes by hand to bury there sumps and FTs.
I had not heard of modwood, just had a quick look at there site. I have used merbau to cap the GBs and cover the fishtank.

Matt

Having just gone through the build with timber I would agree Bundybear, I'm no tradesmens so I have both learnt a fair bit about wood and made some compromises I hope dont come back to bite me. MY set-up is visible from the kitchen window so there were some aesthetic worries voiced by my fiance. To help keep expenses down I went to a demo yard to buy some second hand timbers, I came home with a pile of treated pine and some painted pine decking that was sold to me as merbau decking
Anyway I now think i have all the gear I need and am pumped to get my IBC's cut up clad and in action. I was then made aware of the possibilities of leaching and the consequences depending on what the wood was treated with. My compromise was to keep all the treated timbers below the height of IBC plastic and where they are above, they are an inch and a half min. away from the bed. I then have a piece of aluminium angle covering this and have attatched merbau to the aluminium to cap off the beds.

I hope that the aluminium eliminaing contact will stop any leaching. However I dont know if this saved me any expense.(and I still had to buy some merbau for the FT cover.)
I experienced some natural leaching from the merbau covering the fish tank. We had two or three days of heavy rains immediately after building the cover and placing it on the FT, as the wood was new the tannins leached from the wood and the tanic acid had lowered my PH by the third day. Tanic acid is only mild so my PH returned to its original levels with in 36hrs. My understanding is that the tannins will slowly diminish.

Matt