Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You're certainly getting into it Don...

jeez you dont hang around do you don, looking absolutely fantastic

Do you ever sleep Great work

You may not have had much experience with concrete in the past, but you are catching up now. Looking good. Slight twinge of jealousy of the direction your system is heading. Got plans drawn out for the future of the system?

you're a busy man! looking great so far, i'm really impressed with your progress!

Don, what are you using to cut the bevel on the 2x6's? I'm going to be making something that needs a similar cut and I'm not sure if I have the appropriate saw.

CC I use my table saw to cut the bevel on the 2x6 planks but you can use a skill saw if you can get one or borrow one. What ever saw you use go buy a good quality new blade to cut with. On the first rack, I had several cheap saw blades laying around and used all them up trying to get a decent cut on the treated wood. On the second rack I was even getting upset with the results before I decided to get out the good blade and wow what a difference. Like cutting cheese. easy to do now.
Actually I think you could not do the bevel just nail them together side to edge to get a 45.

I do have one failing on my design and that is the middle rail needs a small piece to hold the barrels up. The outside rail is under the barrel but the middle rail wants to go up between the barrels so I am thinking of using a piece of metal about 6x6 by 1/4" thick to put on the middle rail to support the back of each barrel. My barrels are bolted together with two bolts as close to the edge as I could get them. That holds the barrel bottoms flat to each other, otherwise they tend to bow out and make the center gap larger than I wanted. I was afraid they would fall through. Make sure they are higher than the water level will be as they leak some.

I am still trying to learn to use Sketchup but not doing well with that yet. If I can get it to work I will post a sketch of how I built the racks. I don't usually use blue prints to build things. I see it in my mind and build it.

By the way Gnash06 I sleep while your awake I think. We are about 12 hours different here in the Good old USA. I made a terrible mistake a while back, I decided I was retired and now I really work harder than I ever did before even when I was a mechanic on heavy equipment.

I don't have a table saw but I do have a circular saw and jig saw, both with adjustable shoes. I guess I can try both of them out and see which one works better. I'm going to be making a couple sun boxes for this winter, so that's why I was asking. If you're looking for another way to brace the barrels, Travis Hughey just screws a 2x8 to a 2x6. That seems to be a less labor intensive method for making the supports.

Screwing a 2x6 to a 2x8 should work fine. that would give you a 45o for support. Im playing with sketchup and cant do a thing with it. I can describe how I built the rack but cant draw it

Todays progress. I removed the forms on the slab and smoothed the edges and put the racks on the new slab. I also built the A frame plant hanger for the climbing plants. I think I finally got the salt back in range and now the rain is overflowing the Fish Tank again so the salt is going to go lower. I feel like I just cant keep up lately. Most of my plants look like hell and I think I will just replace them nearly all. The water us really dark and I cant see any Cat Fish. I'm disappointed some more. I can see a lot of the Minnows and the Blue Gills when I put in a minimal amount of food once or twice a day. The water is clearer in the morning so I know that it is alge. I put a cover over most of the tank to slow down the alge but I hope to remove it so the tank looks like a pond. I will be building a green house pretty soon. Hope to have it up before it gets to hot for the plants. I have finally decided that I want to do a hoop house. My cousin has a hoop bender for a 20 foot house. I think I can modify it to make a 25 foot hoop to cover my garden. Two beds 6 foot wide, and a 6 foot aisle in the middle, a 3 foot walk on either side

hang in there don, the first crop of plants is usually pretty ordinary while the biofilter is becoming established also your algae will go away once the PH has dropped to below 7, and the biofilter is established, so you will be able to have it like a pond

as always, your racks are great looking (probably the first time ive said that to a bloke )

Here is my tank water test at midnight instead of 10:00Am. There is 100 3" fish in there and been there for a while. I am getting antsy. Oh well light feed and wait. I may be able to get gravel in the new barrels by Monday and start circulation in them also. I will put in more plants as soon as I can.
Doubling the GB volume will cause a new cycle I think.

This test looks like tap water not a fish tank. The water is brownish and cloudy. I can see in to the water about 6". With all this rain the tank is a full 28" deep now. Was running over earlier.
I read this as
Ph 7.9
ammo barely more than 0
rites less that 0
rates 0

What do you think about that?

Thanks Freoboy. I need that extra bit.

yeh your PH is high still, causing the algae bloom. id say with the infulx of FW from your rain the ammo and rites are being diluted. how many weeks has it had fish in it for now? can take anywhere up to 6-8 weeks to cycle. the only thing that will speed this up is patience i am afraid

I have had fish in the tank since 3-19-11 except for a few days where the fish all died form too much salt. Started over again as soon as I could get the salt lowered back in range. I had used a floating temp and hydrometer to measure the salinity but it was not the right one to use so I over did it trying to get it to move. I had it up to 1.012 which is twice the ocean level. Killed everything I guess. Only a couple of plants are still alive and I need to put in more now. I got the current batch of fish on 4-19-11. 50 Channel Cats 3-4" fingerlings, 50 2-3" Copper Nose Blue Gills, and another # of minnows. The salt was still a bit too high and I lost a few Copper Nose Blue Gills or minnows before I got it down to 1.003 ppt. The second Hydrometer was an Instant Ocean model which is the high range meter which is still too hard to determine what the exact level is. So I bought a refractometer next and it works pretty well but it has to be recalibrated every time I use it. That I don't like but as long as you know to do it, well OK. I had it set to 1.003 before the rain started. Now it is diluted some and it is suppose to rain 4 more days. The tank is running over now. So no use doing anything now. Will probably have to add more salt next week.