Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

my apologies, left off Graham ave as your heading towards Belingara

Yep , thats the one . Our neighbours look forward to the delivery:)

Excellent info, very comprehensive. While there may be dangers of lifting, there is no digging and little bending, unlike regular gardening.

Just one more questions, what about concrete? Is it possible to build something yourself from concrete that is safe? In a lot of countries aquaculture is done in concrete rings.

If you had a handy supply of cheap concrete rings, simply lining them would make it all safe.

Potable water paint for concrete is also available.

OBO ,, Plachon is in Thailand and I know what he's thinking ,, cheap concrete "pipe connectors " ?? they are seen all over Thailand beside the roads ....., yep they are trying to come away from 3rd world country status,,,,they are about a metre or so high laid down and come in many different diameters.
Plachon ,, I've seen these used on Uncles fish farm as temporary fish holders. he just threw down some concrete and then sat the pipe on top. The problems for more permanent housing of the fish may be ..... PH ..... most of Thailand ( well Isaan) already has very Alkaline / hard water ,, the cement containers may just make getting a lower PH even more difficult ,, but at least the water is highly buffered.

lead glazing on some bathtubs. there have been cases of infants getting lead poisoning from their bath tubs. please test your baths tubs with a $20 lead test pen to be sure.
the recirculated nature of AP makes whats usually a trivial danger a bit more serious.

has anyone actually done tests of fish out of AP for heavy metals or other toxins? i wonder how much it'd cost or if we could get it sponsored some how?

I've read an Organic Gardner where they've mentioned that you can get your soil tested by various labs for ~$80. I think they said you could test eggs as well!?

You can get a relatively cheap test for lead in drinking water. It might be worth running that test on the water in an AP system to see if the water has enough lead in it to pose any danger before trying to send the fish or plants off for tissue testing in a system that might not have any lead danger.

how did we come to the consensus on black poly? it's mentioned too much on here to find it with the search. i've got lots of 25mm black poly that was used on my koi pond, it's got "TYPE 30 PE" on the side of it but i can't google anything definitive on it's safety for drinking water.

I think the poly is usually good and, if fish safe, is probably ok for you. The black is (as far as I know) add carbon which protects from sunlight damage (stops UV from penetrating far). It may also hide color differences in recycled poly, but I wouldn't think they would use that for fish. I've been using it for two systems so far... Here's one: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3620&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=hydrophilia+system+2.5&start=0. My right hand man used clear for the sump, but it is always in the dark, so should be ok.

um, you might need to dumb it down a little for me still.

It would be good if we could include a little on different types of pond liners. Reading here it seems that EPDM is the safest. While HDPE and LDPE are better than PVC.

Does this sound right? I'm in Thailand and having trouble finding anything other than PVC. At this point I'm wondering if PVC is 'safe enough' or whether I should just forget the pond liner altogether.

Any advice? It's worth mentioning that the water over here all travels through blue PVC pipe before being filtered for drinking.

Hey Plachon... you're not the only one seemingly frustrated about sourcing in Thailand... bit funny cconsidering the stuff is made there...

Here's a forum link that contains some info ... http://teakdoor.com/construction-in-tha ... liner.html ... scroll down to post #9...