Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks Muzza.

I am using 110mm pipes and 19mm stone in the hope that clogging will be kept to a minimum. I'll also be adding a plastic irrigation system tap to the inlet end of each tower so that I can balance the flow rates across the various towers.

Hope to have the system plumbed and flowing by monday evening.

sorry for the long wait but it was a deep gutter
EllKayBee has it right there, slightly off of the perpendicular...

As for differences in growth rates - its more about maximising your space and towers are great at this. I have noticed that all the plants send down LONG roost so the bottom can become clogged

On towers clogging. Joels really clean beds houses earth worms. My indoor herb garden bed has escapee and now seeded whiteworms living in it. Both species are cleaners of waste and they move around to feed.

Hopefully they'd stay in a tower and move up and down to feed thus providing drainage. They should only populate at the rate of waste of your plants root system and nutrient streams excess.

I popped 3 in the top of each tower a few weeks ago, but the only way to know if they stayed would be to pull it appart - not an option right now!

Spent the weekend making up more towers for my system. They're an improvement on my original prototype which I ran for 10 days to evaluate. Found some problems with the design which I've fixed with the new one.

Problems included: too many parts, took too long to make, needed too much glue - ick, couldn't take high flow without leaking.

The new design reduces the number of parts required and my my new construction method eliminates the need for glue by using my good old mate the heat gun. By measuring up the improved design for a template the new type now takes 30mins start to finish.

For those not easily bored and with nothing pressing to occupy their time here's a description to go with the ultra cheesy paint drawing - I NEED TO LEARN SKETCHUP QUICKLY!!!

From the top of the diagram:

Nylon ball valve to control flow rate

Smaller pockets in the 110mm dainpipe. Cut 80mm across with sharply forlded corners - thanks to Murray for the sharp corners thing. If the corners are sharp it
doesn't leak and being smaller there is less gravel exposed so there should be less algae and less evaporation.

BLUE : 25mm electrical conduit adaptor (conduit to box) threaded into downpipe and locked with lock ring. Makes a nice
tight press fit to a warmed up 25mm poly pipe end. A short cut is to ditch threading the hole in the pipe. Drill it 24mm and then apply the heatgun to the area around the hole till it softens. The adaptor then turns in easily and the pipe flattens a bit so that the lock ring seals completely flat. As the pipe cools the hole shrinks and it seals up perfectly

RED: Male 110mm end plug with the flange ground off and inserted back to front. Heat the pipe till it softens while you turn it and then tap the plug in. As the pipe cools it shrinks a bit and makes a completely watertight seal against the plug. You coud use a union to insert the plug into but this way you don't need glue and it is one less part. I have the towers standing on poles so that they are elevated for water velocity back into the tank and easy to align.

If you were to mount them to something else you wouldn't need the pocket formed by the inverted end cap and you could insert the plug right way round and not need to grind off the flange.

Still there? Haven't you got a job or dishes to wash (-:

Good one mike, I like the idea of using fairly large gravel and the idea of worms sounds good!

nice one - and dont stress about SketchUp, this drawing did the job more than well enough!

Ha Ha, my glueless construction method is more like clueless. The end plugs in the tower dont seal up as well as I thought. Lost a lot pf water through two leaky ones.

Think it's the scratches in the surface of the plug from when I ground off the flange. Water finds it's way out if you giveit a chance. Have isolated the towers to let them dry and will bog in a bit of glue tomorrow.

This aquaponics lark sure is addictive!

Just use a bit of silicone sealant its cheap and not as carcinogenic as the the PVC glue. Run a good bead in the inside of the pipe then push the end cap in the bottom. That will never leak. For extra support get a big pip clamp and slip it over the end and tighten it up. Remember to get fish safe silicone.

Problem with this idea is that the plug and pipe are of equal diameter. In order to get the plug in you have to heat the pipe until it is soft enough to expand as you tap in the plug. That is far too hot to hold so I doubt the silicone will work. The pipe shrinks as it cools so a there's no problem with it being loose, in fact I doubt if you could remove the plug without destroying the pipe.

I will use the silicone to seal them up from the bottom once they cool down though. Thanks for the idea.

Another way to soften PVC pipe and fittings is using hot cooking oil in a saucepan, it is hot enough when bubbles form on a wooden object. In my experience it is much more 'friendly' to work with and doesn't melt/burn the plastic. Soften pipe, tap on the end cap and add a pipe clamp to make sure it hardens securly around the stopper. And cool in in room temperature water.

Murray, with using cocopeat in your main grow beds, have you tried it in a tower yet?

I'm going to start construction of the 8 towers tomorrow, and I was wondering about medium.

I've got 150mm diameter pipe. The plan is to put the first cut in 30cm from the base (using AM's end caps and garden fittings - got lots of them). The cuts will be 10cm long and offset around the pipe, in a spiral. Each layer of cut would be separated by about 20cm. I've done a really dodgy sketch of my plan.

I will mount the towers over the drums to catch any overflow and spillage.

The drums will be sitting on railway sleepers.

Nice one Jaymie (the pictures depart the meaning) - Strawberry Rows (Rose), didn't the Beatles sing about that (back in the 50's )

I don't know Les I wasn't alive way baaack then

'Let me take you down cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields... Nothing is real... and nothing to get hung about.... Strawberry Fields Forever...'