Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

looks great TC, had a small problem with the drop down on the indexing valve page (i've been wanting to contact you about those, but funds are low for now)

good stuff!

Thanks JT

I'll go have a look and see what's up with that Keith.

Feel free to contact me and ask questions about the valves and once funds are up ya can worry about ordering.

Love this system TC...

I hope you don't mind it's ever changing nature

For anyone in Florida USA that might be interested,

I'm planning a free workshop where I'm going to expand one of my aquaponics systems and give others a chance to get a little hands on experience if they wish.
It is planned for December 11 and 12 from 10-4 with pot luck lunch. My place is near Mount Dora

For more info
http://www.aquaponiclynx.com/workshop-dec-1112-2010

Is that code for gravel washing?

Yep I'm offering an opportunity to anyone willing to have a chance at the ubiquitous Aquaponics initiation activity

There will be other things going on too and seeing as it only took me less than 12 hours all by my self in extreme heat to wash the gravel for the first three grow beds, I figure even if only a few people show up, we might have it done in short order.

The first day will be showing bed placement and plumbing tricks and we will probably only just start the washing near the end of the day just so those who won't be there the second day can have a chance for initiation.

We harvested the big banana from the front porch bed.

I will caution against bananas in regular grow beds now since this one cracked the Stock tank. So far the others in the barrel shaped cut the long way water tanks have not damaged the beds since the gravel will probably rise up more than push out in beds shaped like that.

Anyway, we removed the bunch of bananas and hung them in the garage and dug the banana plant out.

When I looked back through my pictures from the past year. I realized that the small pump wasn't even planted in that bed till May!!!

We have removed the banana plants from the stock tanks on the 300 gallon system too and planted them in the ground cause I don't want to deal with removing them later when they are so huge that they take half the gravel with them.

The blog post with pictures will be up in a few days.
http://www.aquaponiclynx.com/tclynx-blog

So reminder to anyone near here interested in the Workshop, it's coming up this weekend.
http://aquaponicscommunity.com/events/tclynx-300-gallon-expansion

I’ll make chile for lunch Saturday so bring stuff to go with it. Salad, side dishes etc.

Dress for the weather and bring some dry things for the drive home.

I’ve got all the materials for the expansion, picked up the new gravel guard material yesterday so we even get to test out some new stuff.

We are now into cold weather here and it's my first season without any sort of greenhouse.
I did throw some frost blanket over a few things but I won't be covering everything this winter. At least the fish are fairly big already and so shouldn't expire due to being tiny fingerlings anyway.

Hey TC

let me know how you like the new mesh rock guard material....

JT

Hope it's a good one TC... Looking forward to some pics of the expansion....

Well I won't give a final judgment on the mesh material till after I've filled the beds and see how they hold up to the pressure. The openings in the mesh is wider than I was expecting but it should still work. Just need to avoid dropping too much in the way of really small stuff around the stand pipe I guess.
For some reason I was also expecting to see black but it's clear. So, we will probably want to make sure to put something over the top on the outside to protect the top from the sun.

Since my grow beds are 25 inches deep, I made the guards about 27 inches tall and a piece 20 inches wide will roll up to make a nice size tube for even the cook to put his arm down with about 4 inches of overlap.

Since the drains go out the side of my grow beds, I used a hole saw to cut a whole for the pipe in the first one and was able to put my arm down it holding the elbow and attach it to the drain pipe so that size is pretty good. Nearly impossible to put you hand down a 3" mesh tube and attach an elbow at the bottom. I've done it but my arm fits down the 3" tubing, I think most guys that are not wire thin might not even get their hand half way down the tube. So the mesh seems like a good thing so far.

To make it into a tube I simply rolled it into a cylinder and used some zip ties to stitch it together. Any stiff plastic material could be used to stitch it together I didn't even bring the end back to the catch on the zip tie, just threaded it in as far as I could then did another one on the other end. With the long zips I had they almost meet in the middle.

I used the battery powered circular saw to cut the stuff and a face shield is recommended since the little bits of plastic hurt if they get you in the face. Tin snips or a hand saw would work just fin to cut it but far more tedious.

I'll have to put up some pictures later.

Mostly bendy, but substantial and stiff at the small scale? Sounds like the right stuff!
Do you think it would make an adequate FLOUT cage by itself (say one foot cube) or would it still need reinforcing with milk-crate-grade material to hold the media back? I know, more testing needed...

If I were just a LITTLE bit closer, I would definitely come over and wash gravel!

Rick

It is stiff enough when rolled into a circle but a flat piece would definitely not support gravel pushing against it.

It would be just the stuff to line the flout side of a milk crate though since the spacing in a milk crate tends to let gravel fall through.

Of course there is probably other mesh you could get that is lighter weight that would work in a milk crate too. Like the clam cage material that I've gotten at Aquatic eco before.

Posting updates about the workshop over on the 300 gallon system thread
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=7656&start=60
I'll upload some pictures of the gravel guard stuff there.