Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It is funny how things happen in life. I have never heard of quick clay before it was mentioned several posts back and then the novel I picked up the other day had one of the central themes of the plot pivoting on quick clay and the results of building on top of it.

So I now know what it is, why it would be really rare in Australia and that I'm absolutely sure that I don't have any.

Had a rather scary near miss today.

My nieghbour wants to build a shed next to my place and several trees needed to be removed. One of these trees I was very happy to see gone because it was badly scared and leaning towards my GH.

Anyway here it is on the ground.

Came very very close to disaster

Was pleased that I hadn't put the FT liner in yet.

Not the photo I wanted.

Thats better. As I said glad I didn't have the liner in yet.

is too bloody right

Two inches to the left and the end of the GH would have been stoved in.

I'm more vocal now that I've had four glasses of wine and a cry.

Made some more progress and I have now had my first real technical hitch.

Filling the FT and I heard a metalic pop.

Turned out the tree had taken out one of the supports and as the FT had filled one of the panel started to give. The pop I heard was the sheetmetal screws giving way holding the bits of panel together. Not suprising really which is why the wood supports was meant to be there.

Not so bad right? A breif HSM but since I had the pump I just got the water out and fixed it up.

Then I thought I'd really fill it up.

Got some photos showing the strain the bracing is under with water in the tank.

Only a foot or so of water in the tank at this point.

This is it full and the other side...


The whole thing has started to lean down the hill. THe bottom can't blow out, the sides can't expand but the whole thing is doing its trapezoidal best to lean over.

This design works well for things that are arond 80cm deep above that it starts getting hairy. At 1.15m its bad, bad , bad.

So anyway I've had some ideas on how to fix it but I'd love some comments before I post them.

Your going to have to drain it, and add some proper sized support to frame the tank.

Oh its drained, don't worry about that. There was no way I was going to leavge it like that over night.

Maybe some over the top bracing from ground, over the top of the tank, back to ground?
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Maybe build a "cage" around it with top rail fencing pipe.... like Elk did around his big growbeds.... relatively cheap, and easily found....

It allready has a fair bit of that. If it was a shed I'd say the problem is the lack of diagonal bracing rather than vertical or horizontal. Since its a tank its a bit hard to get in there and add some.

If you look at the last picture the middle of the tank is bowing but not the ends. The Cool room panels are providng excellent bracing a thte ends but since the tank is 6m long they are just not enough.

is there room for buttress supports (external bracing)?
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if you don't have anyone else, you can pm me the dimensions and the support you've already got, and I'll get a structural engineer mate to recommend a retaining wall-type solution with steel beams etc (materials would be pricey but it would give you a starting point to do your own design with whatever materials you can get)

If only you were getting scrap metal in quantities like you have been hardwood. I reckon some concreted in vertical big arse H bar (or even railway track) on each side with hozizontal pieces welded to the top of them - going across the tank, would do the job (if the materials were cheaply available, which I guess is unlikely)

Pity you're not closer to OBO & Gnash.... they might be able to get you a truckload of those drill rods.