Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Weird. Not sure I'd use it over my fish tank - but will keep it in mind for other uses.

tried it as a kid before the word terrorism was flaged on the net and ASIO busted down your door.

From what i heard it was dissolved in petrol (gasoline for our cousins )

and that the gas given off (it does bubble quite a bit) was quite toxic, but i can not confirm this.

I'd definatly be looking up the chemical reaction and looking at the end products of the equation before proceeding. should be easier to look up with acetone.

it only bubbles in petrol, maybe cause of the oil content. it just melts in acetone and cause acetone completely evaporates there is no residue from the solvent. another thing is it's like paint with acetone, petrol makes that melted rubber type substance. I will look it up though, it's a really cheap alternative to laquer or epoxy and hopefully safer than conventional treatments.

we called the petrol mixed stuff flubba gubba, used to pour it on letterboxes, light it and run like hell. was funny when I was 15. only mildly amusing now.

This info is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrene and absolutely amazing how much crap we actually use everyday that can harm us. no more plastic containers in the microwave for me. only china.



Polystyrene can be melted down to form Styrene.
Styrene is named after the styrax trees from whose sap (benzoin resin) it can be extracted. Low levels of styrene occur naturally in plants as well as a variety of foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, beverages, and meats. It is produced in industrial quantities from benzene and ethylene via the intermediate ethylbenzene. The production of styrene in the United States was increased dramatically during the 1940's to supply the war needs for synthetic rubber. Because the styrene molecule has a vinyl group with a double bond, it can polymerize. It is used as a monomer to make plastics such as polystyrene, ABS, styrene-butadiene (SBR) rubber, styrene-butadiene latex, SIS (styrene-isoprene-styrene), S-EB-S (styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene), styrene-divinylbenzene (S-DVB), and unsaturated polyesters. These materials are used in rubber, plastic, insulation, fiberglass, pipes, automobile parts, food containers, and carpet backing.

Styrene is classified as a possible human carcinogen by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

flubba - gubba eh? we used to call it home made napalm... but anyhow. If you leave the mix for some time, it makes a hard block, so I assume it would make a decent epoxy. The petrol make it reek something chronic, and I'm not sure it ever lost a residual stickyness.
I'm sure that acetone would make a better mix... I wonder why we never used it.... Probably more expensive than petrol.
One thing to consider, the dried polystyrene-petrol mix, was very flammable. A match would have the whole thing aflame like a firelighter / roman candle in no time.

And yet we still get coffee served in styro cups... It has to leach something, when I have tea in those cups, it tastes yuck.

I am quite sure handling that much acetone and melting that much polystyrene could have some toxic effects.

For a deck over the fish pond I would probably look into the composite decking alternatives. I re-built the deck for my mom last summer and we used composite decking and it worked pretty well. The only issue I see is that there weren't any composite beams or joist alternatives so we still used pressure treated lumber for that (this particular deck is not possible to get under.) I'm not sure what the best alternative for your situation would be or if there would be any real leaching issues from the composite decking materials. They do cost more and some types require closer joist spacing . I suppose another option would be to put up the metal stuff to divert run off from under the deck so it can't get into the tanks but that would also be like putting a full roof over the tanks. That might still be ok as it would keep debris from falling through the deck into your tanks as well.

Good luck

All decking is treated for outdoor use already. If you are talking about trying to retain it's natural colour then I would suggest a Polyurathane wood finish rated for out door use. Coat the timbers before installation, making sure you get an even coat on both tob and bottom (same amount).
If you get an even coat on all sides it will stop the wood from bowing due to taking up moisture from the side that is not coated.

H.

polymerization is starting to get out of my leuge, but as far as i'm aware Vinyl chloride and stryrene are both carcinogenic, but polymerise them and they're cool. also you can burn polystyrene in an excess of oxygen and it produces co2 and water. people dont realise how many BTU's they have lying around in foam packaging but it has to be in an excess of ocygen, otherwise you get all that black smoke

Here in the states redwood is the choice for natural wood decking if you don't want treated or to have to coat/stain it all the time. The deck I replaced with the composite decking was previously made of redwood and it had lasted over 30 years with little/no extra care and a fair amount of abuse. As a kid I recall getting splinters from that old deck when it was still pretty new which is how I remember the aprox age of the deck.

rule number one - everything gives you cancer.

not a day goes by where i'm not told of something new that will give me cancer.

I think the world in general needs to adjust it's priorities back to real problems instead of making up new ones to frigthen the huddled masses.

timmy, so you're saying cancer awareness is domestic terrorism. I've been told if I have children it would be known as genetic terrorism.

As for timber treatments and water proofing, maybe the good ol' fashioned lacquer and metho is the best option, expensive but proven safe for thousands of years.

terrorism isn't under my list of real problems either, so no.

the number of people killed each year in this country by speeding/dangerous driving far far exceeds terrorism. yet we spend a bucket load more on anti terrorism then we do putting more cops on the road.
That's what i mean when i talk about getting priorties straight. dealing with real problems we can do something about instead of worrying about things that have a bullshit small chance of happening.

and for the timber it's not so much the water proofing i'm worried about as the termites. the little buggers chewed out the cubby house out the back, so they are out there and ready to do damage and i don't want to do anything to attract them closer to the house.

[quote="steve"]yeh, you can often see the bright green coating at the surface. the power poles they have just put in are almost fluro!

see now ya know what shits me? apparently "every cigarette is doing you damage" (which i DO believe) but strangely non lethal doses of other things are ok? humph maybe i just dont get it...........

i think people should rightly fear the cancer boogy man..........whats teh rate now? 1 in 2? oh, but thats right, its only because we have such better diagnostic toold and we're living much longer that the rate has increase.

each to their own, i'd not use it.[/quote]

there is a world of difference between smoking somthing and just touching it. your skin is VERY good at keeping things out, where the lining of your lungs is not so.
i'd also wager people smoke more cigs then they eat power poles to, so the dosage isn't comparable.

http://progressreport.cancer.gov/trends-glance.asp
virtually across the board, the rates of late stage diagnoses and deaths from cancer are FALLING.

i live in an outlying suburb and already this year there have been 30+ bush fires close by. Most days last week we had up to 5 helicopters at a time going back and forth overhead. That's hardly big news in Perth, but it bothers me that this whole suburb has CCA fences, pergolas, trellises bollards etc. Charred at the edges in some places.

There are so many things wrong with this suburb from a design perspective - same old story with so much urban sprawl - quick money for the developers was all that mattered.

Clearly there are varying opinions on how much we should worry about CCA but it's wrong to foist it on so many people for a quick buck.

timmy, the skin is also VERY good at absorbing things.

oh, and cancer survival rates are usually quoted as 5 year survival rates...............amazing how many people die after that..........