Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It looks like a great way of growing food for the fish and also to keep some of the yard weed free.

Great looking channel that TCL.

Maybe you can fill up the leaks with a little steel epoxy or something? Like a tire puncture kit maybe.

I actually put a hand full of damp sand in by the one leak that was spraying out. It slowed it to a seep.

I really don't expect that billboard liner to really be worth trying to patch since there are so many places that are leaking though. I've got a good liner on the way and I'll just reserve the billboard material for wicking beds where it doesn't matter too much if they leak a little.

TC, I'm not familiar with the layout. Does the system face south? I noticed some shade in that last shot. Maybe some shade is nice? We had our first frost last week - seasonably late for us up north!

That new long bed has a line of crepe myrtles to the west of it. It is running North/South. The south end of it also gets some morning shade from an oak tree further to the south. There are some other oak trees to the west that have gotten big enough to cast a lot of shade on that bed from just after noon on. I'm hoping there will still be enough sun to grow lettuce and duckweed in that bed. Perhaps the shade will even provide salad into a longer season since it gets too hot for lettuce here in the sun for most of the year.

There is quite a lot of shade around here. In the summer it is needed. For winter growing it doesn't help much and I struggle to find good places to grow the winter veggies.

How is your weather going TCLynxs? Cooler months always a bit miserable!!

Actually, winter is usually fairly pleasant here though we are really only into fall weather. Had a few nights cooler than normal and some areas got very early frosts but it was 80 F here yesterday. I actually like the somewhat cooler weather since most of the year it's too hot to grow lettuce, kale, broccoli, cabbage, etc.

I'm just hoping we don't have a winter like last year!!!! Multiple hard freeze nights in a row during multi week stretches of the daytime highs not really warming much either, that isn't normal here. Since last winter was so hard, I'm hoping this one will be mild so that I can keep some of the bananas and papayas producing and maybe even some pineapple. We shale see.

Sounds like it might be mild for you. I have no idea what is happening with us. I m hoping for a wet summer!!

So Friday Afternoon I went down and picked up the new liner for the bed.

Yesterday, I spent the day installing that new liner.

First I drained the existing liner (involved setting all the grow beds to constant flood to hold the extra water so I didn't waste it all. I also filled up some other tubs with water to try and conserve. Even so, I of course lost some.



Anyway once the bed was drained down, I tried to clean it out a bit and I cut slits along the outside edge to let it drain the rest of the way and added a few holes in the deep spots and one end. Otherwise I have left the billboard liner in place as and underlay to help protect the more costly EPDM though it is usually tough enough not to need as much protection.



However, this isn't Firestone Pond guard EPDM and even through it's supposed to be the same mil, it doesn't feel as heavy. I'm also a little worried that it smells a lot more than the Firestone stuff I'm used to. This stuff is actually white on one side and black on the other. It was being sold as "pond liner" but I'm a bit worried that this is actually roofing EPDM.

I unfolded it since it wasn't folded in a way that would easily lay out into the bed. I sprayed it off with the hose hoping that a rinse would help, it smells strong. The ends are also dirty, must have been sitting on a wet floor before getting boxed up.

Anyway, got the liner re-folded and rolled so I could place it in the bed and unroll it as the stays and arches would not let me just drag it in.



Lifting the rolled up wet linger into the bed kinda impressed me, the liner dry was 85 lb so I'm certain that with some of the rinse water still trapped in the liner it must have been more when I lifted the roll up.

Note how the liner is folded kinda like kleenex when I unroll it down the bed.



This is very helpful when laying long liners into rectangular beds. It helps to get the liner roughly centered in the bed and then you simply flip the sides up.



Of course was a little trickier than that in this case since the stays were in the way so I had to cut slits for the overlap of the liner to fold over the outside of the bed.

As I noted, there is a really strong smell to this liner. I'm worried that it might not be fish safe even though it was being sold as pond liner.



So, I didn't completely patch it back into the main system plumbing yet. I re-filled it half way so I could set the rest of the beds back to flood and drain. And then bypassed the flow to/from this bed so I could keep it isolated for a while.

I have added some test pilots. Two Catfish.



And need some aeration and such so here is how I left them for the night



Since taking the pictures I added a couple 3 foot towers worth of filtration as well.

I must say it's great fun watching the fish with the white liner as background, makes them so easy to see.

However, this is why I provided some stuff for them to hide under because I expect swimming over a white surface makes them feel vulnerable. I also sunk a bit of capillary fabric down on one end to give them a dark surface to rest on, which they do seem to like sleeping there, so I put some covers over that end to protect them some from birds or raccoons.

Anyway, they are still alive as of the next morning and don't seem worse for the wear of handling or being in the new environment.

Anyone have comments about how long you think I should keep them in the raft tank to test it before hooking back up with the bigger system? How long does it take to know if a liner is going to be toxic? At least with catfish, I would hope to know sooner than with other types of fish since they have such sensitive skin.

Both test pilots still living after two nights in the raft bed. Unfortunately, I think the little one might be getting chased some by the bigger one. Appears to be some damage to the little guy's side like he has banged roughly into a few things hard enough to get some scrapes.

I squished some aloe leaf gel into the water yesterday, I wonder if it will have any effect.

The bigger fish seems fine as far as I can tell. With fewer fish in the tank they spend most of their time just resting while a tank with a higher density of fish they seem to be in constant motion.

The test fish are still surviving

I've been spending time working on the web site so haven't been on here as much lately.
http://www.aquaponiclynx.com/

New site is looking great TC..... keep up the good work

jT