Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Waiting for the concrete footing to dry out. I have been keeping it wet for a few days to cure it. One of the drawbacks of building with bricks is the waiting I am thinking of doing round growbeds instead of the capsule shaped ones because they are quite round and I think it will be hard to get to the back to work. If they are round I willl be able to move aruond them more easily.

The first course goes down onto the bitumin with no re-inforcing. The radial arm is used to place the bricks.

4mm galvanised fence wire is placed on top of the bricks before the next course goes on.

What I meant was they will be quite wide and they will be difficult to reach across and the far side will be right up against the GH wall, so round will be better. Should post when I am not totally exhausted and late at night

I skipped a step, and a vitally important one! Before brick laying starts the footing gets a good coating of bitumen. This creates a sliding joint between the footing and the wall to allow for the slight thermal expansion and contraction of the wall. You can see the bitumen in this pic.

The walls have come along. It is 700mm high now. Another 3 courses and it's 1m. Then the plastering starts.

Wow - what a cool way to build a tank

Hi Outback. It is quite cheap which is also a bonus. For the footing I used two 50kg bags of cement 3.5 barrows of sand, and 3.5 barrows of stone. The bricks cost about 15 us cents each and I will use 270 of them for the whole tank. the wire is fairly cheap and mortar for bricklaying is only a bag of cement and some sand. The tank will hold 3800 litres. a similar tank from plastic would have cost me $500 or more. I am planning on using exactly the same process for building all the GB's and the sump. This is my new plan

Ok this is cool Brian. Awesome!

Does anyone else see the humor in this situation? He went from a bathtub and a few gutters to this? Haha!

Yip, it is quite funny. Start small they said.... well I did kind of make a start small but it ended quickly and now I am going big. I figure the amount of cash spent on plumbing for a small system would only be a waste only to build a bigger system later, besides I have the space! Today we got the tank wall ccompleted and dug out the pole and levelled off the floor. It is looking quite cool and I am getting super excited. will post pic.

Here is the tank so far.

And an inside view.

Well Brian,
I am thinking that aesthetics is NOT going to be a problem...

Before you do coat the floor, read this.
viewtopic.php?p=61234#p61234

The solid-lifting overflow could go in the middle, and the inlet from the sump could be angled to create the whirlpool. Solids gather in the middle and are quickly removed...

Juuust a thought. I like the concept but don't have a round fish tank yet.

I love it...and all your hard work that has gone into it will look amazing when you are finished well done..