Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Water temp at 6:45 am was 52F.

This evening when I got home from work the test results are as follows.

pH 8.0
Ammonia 2-3 ppm
Nitrite between .25 and .50 ppm
Nitrate between 0 and 5 (looks like maybe 4) ppm

"There's a hole in the bucket dear Liza dear Liza
There's a hole in the bucket dear Liza a Hole."

Ok so not actually a hole (as that might be useful) but a crack in the barrel.
Now I've gotten experience patching a hole on a sort of flat bottom of a barrel but now I'm looking at a crack at the area where the side meets the bottom. If it were a barrel like the blue drums, I would simply cut it in half long wise at the crack and turn it into two grow beds. But it is a different kind of barrel, not so suited to grow beds as the entire top comes off and if the barrel were cut in half, it wouldn't be able to fill very well. It might be possible to seal up the end but perhaps not worth the trouble if I can come up with another idea.

I like turning issues into opportunities. What do people think of turning this barrel into some sort of filter? I would have to prop or suspend it over the edge of a tank or perhaps place it in a bin or tray that can be plumbed.
And then I would probably want to cover/paint it as I'm sure alge would thrive in such a container.

Any ideas, recommendations, warnings, tips for making a supplemental filter for a system? what are things to keep in mind for choosing media for a filter and what are the normal issues?

TC, you're getting really nice blue barrels for $15... You know what to do with this thing

I have a plastic welder. I got it from harbor freight. It works great for cracks!! I have saved enough money in glue to pay for the device now.

I saw a plastic welder at Harbor Freight the other day and was really thinking about it. Hum, maybe I'll have to go get it and just turn this into another rain barrel like I did with the other one.

Its a very handy tool for people working with plastic all the time. Just make sure you have dry clean air from your compressor. I had to add a water separator on mine.

Hum, well not having an air compressor at this point in time, this barrel might just have to wait before being put into service. There are other equipment investments that take priority at this time. (unless of course some one tells me that an air compressor would be worth while to provide aeration to the fish tanks. I suspect they wouldn't be the efficient choice for such a purpose though.)

Nope an air compressor is not an efficient source of aeration.

Go for a real aquarium air pump as for the drum toss it

I was figuring I'd need a real air pump once I really get up and running. I'll need a pretty good size one with over 600 gallons of Fish pond but I don't want to go for a blower since that is overkill and would be wasting energy.

As for the drum. I don't intend to toss it, it will just find a use that doesn't require it to be water tight. Will probably be cut in half and turned into a couple half barrel dirt planters or something (hum, the mint kinda needs re-potting and I don't dare leave it un-contained or it will take over the world.) The top opening isn't big enough to make it very useful as a can for leaves and chips.

With the compressor you can the water pumped at a very low pressure and you consume less power than a real pump. I know a guy that runs a hole fish battery with a small compressor in his attic. And if you want to do repartitor for different air lines, just plug it on a PVC diam 40 mm closed on the two ends, it will give an even air pressure in all the air lines plugged on it.

Good luck with the barrel, maybe you could do a hole at the crack with a pipe fitting on each side around where the plastic is cracking. then you would have a biofilter for NFT gutters, or a clarifie, and the lid could make it work under water pressure and keep an access to what is inside, that is a nice barrel you found!!

If you want to make it a filter, you could always try an external RSG filter.
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... hlight=rsg

That was my original idea, make a filter. I wasn't really thinking along the lines of the RSG filter though. That would be a darn big RSG filter! I had been thing more a clairifying filter that could go in line before NFT troughs or something.

Now though, I'll probably just cut the barrel in half and have to barrel end planters.

Or turn it into a seedling propagator like Steve S did with a barrel ....

http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/vie ... php?t=2283

Been busy today. Upon some thought about space and the required amount of Grow bed to get a 1:1 ratio with the pond, I realized I would need to shift where I dig that pond a bit so that I can fit more grow beds in.

Moved more mulch and shifted frame over a few feet and started digging again. At least it is soft sand I am digging rather than rocky clay. (I did make a point of placing the pond out from under the drip lines of the trees so that I would only have minimal roots to deal with.)

I also moved all the lettuce that had been in the hydro (inside) and in the troughs into the barrel-ponics grow beds. Now the troughs are simply acting as drains and filters down to the in ground tank. I expect I will remove that tank at some point to make space for more grow beds for the pond system. Perhaps that current in ground tank will move to an appropriate location to be a hospital/isolation tank. At that point I can simply move the current small pump into the barrel ponics system and relocate those troughs.

It won't be hard to shift those troughs (with another person to help) once I have a good place to put them. Then I'll have a separate Barrel-Ponics system, an isolation tank, and eventally the large pond system (once I get a big pump, 12 more barrels, plumbing, and media.)

Oh, and then of course I'll need some fish!