Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Cool!

I've added rain water collecting to my tower system now. I think I should be able to add a total of three saucers over the tower frame which should give the added benefit of a little mid day summer shading too!!!!!

Looks like you've taken over the search for extraterrestrial inteligence there TC. Either that or some death ray hooked into the big green dohicky - no doubt storage used for energy sucked from your enemies!

It's almost worth getting one of those just as a conversation piece

what did you make that dish out of tc? looks cool

You're an inspiration TCL... love the rainwater collector....

They are actually a new Product. RainSaucers™
They are made of food grade polypropylene.
Blog posthttp://www.aquaponiclynx.com/rainsaucers%E2%84%A2
Product pagehttp://www.aquaponiclynx.com/products/rainsaucers%E2%84%A2

Hi tc can you ship those to aus?

I suppose it's possible for me to do. I expect the shipping will add to the cost quite a bit. I also really know nothing about what taxes might apply.

They are really rather simple and it is really just those strings keeping it from blowing off the fitting.

Ok no worries I'll see I'd there is something similar out here

Well I wonder if we could get Joel to import a pallet of them or something. Shipping individual saucers over there would be a bit silly (The saucers are $55 us and when I went to fed ex to see the cost of shipping one to Australia it gave me a quick quote of something like $170 for shipping.)

However, if some one there is interested in being a dealer let me know and I'll put you in touch with the inventor. Probably something that the plans could be gotten from them and the materials sourced locally and manufactured there.

I really like N8's tower system but they are to expensive for me. Browsing this thread I decided to try and create my own version of them. TC's system is great and probably cant be beat. I took some surplus NFT trays (read cheap) and cut them in half to 5 ft. and stuffed them with aspen cooler pads. I soaked them in my pond to see if they effected the fish....not at all. I rigged a gallows and a spare PondMaster 5 mag pump on a 1/2" header with 1/4 in adjustable drippers. Lo and behold a make shift vertical garden. Today I planted orageno, basil and cilantro starts, the forth tower is waiting for thyme to be ready for transplanting. All is setup over the pond which has a grow bed that is as large as the space available but to small by half. Note that the trays have sliding covers with holes for net pots the covers hold the media and the holes space the plants. Some of the covers are clear and do not show up well. If it all works out I will report. Meanwhile here are pics:

Cool, just watch those 1/4" pipes though as clogging was my biggest issue before I discovered how to deal with it.

Here is a blog post with video about how I dealt with the clogging issues
http://www.aquaponiclynx.com/tower-flow

Or let me see if I put in on youtube also

Your pump is delivering much more water. Mine is only rated at 500gph, but at 8ft. head, I get perhaps 200gph, just a trickle. Also my towers are closed on top except for the hole drilled to admit the dripper so algae is not getting sun. After running for five days have had no plugging yet. I do have a strainer on the pump suction and on the riser; niether have required flushing yet. But thanks for the tip, I will watch it. This pump may well be to small but was on the shelf. It only draws 0.85 amps so will run off my inverter, solar/wind charged battery. When I get more towers set up will need run a larger pump off the grid-$$$. A large enough pump will allow droping excess water back into pond and improve oxygenation.

For the past week I've been running my ten tower/300+ gallon tank system with the little 50 watt Quiet One 4000 pump. I had started the system off with a bigger pump but when it got hot and I decided the porch system needed to tie into the big system, the little pump was available for me again and I stuck it on the tower system. Granted, I upsize plumbing to get from the pump up to the towers and over to the fish tank. But those little pumps seem so crazy energy efficient for the flow they give. Granted My tower system is still fishless so I can't be certain that the little pump is delivering enough water from the sump to both the towers and the fish tank to keep fish happy once they move in but I'm hopeful, I'll have to watch closely once I get some fish for that system though.


Anyway, As long a s you have an easy means of cleaning out the 1/4" tubing you should be ok, just check them daily.

Time for an update
The tower system got bluegill about a week ago and they seem quite happy, wanna see?