Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

And here's a stop motion movie of the trough building:



I moved the camera more than I thought, alas. Next one will be better.


I have to admit, I'm getting a bit discouraged out there. Everything is moving so slowly...

Wow - I've only just read your thread for the first time - huge undertaking !

Don't get discouraged - I'm sure you knew there were going to be some trip-ups along the way.

But that was only 30 seconds worth of work!

On a serious side. That looked like a lot of work. How long did it actually take you?

Hi Karen: if you haven't pulled the liner yet, could you just shorten both ends a bit to get to uncut liner again? Or maybe make bed number three shorter and use the liner for that. Thanks for the updated info, keep up the good work!

Great work Karen.... like to see how you are progressing,

Just a couple of comments, not too sure that your new fashion statement "clamp pants" is going to catch on, and about your new friend hiding in your hot house, did you ever ponder.......how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood ?

Karen, I expect there has to be a way to put a patch over the mangled holes. Most liner materials do have options for patching or some can probably even be heat welded.

You might want to move the woodchuck from the friend category to the foe category. He is just scouting out all the new plants to eat whilst you have your back turned.

Lots of work going on there. Doing great. You don't have time to get discouraged, just isn't in the budget. Do those Clamp Pants come in black?

A trough takes me a few solid days work, usually spread out over a week or two. I'm getting better with each one.

I've been physically building the whole thing since about Mid-June.


When I'd messed up only one end, shortening the trough was the plan. But now that I've messed up both! I'll definitely use it for something else, though. Either a shorter trough, or my seedling tables. And as TCLynx says, I can probably patch it.


Frequently! About as often as I ponder How many boards could the Mongols hoard of the Mongol hordes got bored?

But more frequently I ponder

(or at least I do when I have a paycheck!)

Bill, well, I'm sure my clamp pants will be black by the time I'm done (a la martial arts black belts starting out white).

Thanks for the encouragement, folks!

hI Karen your really making progress I see. I just caught up your thread. I like it. I was wondering if you had done something on the bottom of the bed so there would be no sharp edges like where the 2 bys cross the trough. Sharp edges might be bad for a liner.

look at I think JTDecals thread where he did his liner holes with a piece of plastic backup. that might be an answer to your problem holes.

Looking good.

Reading through your thread, I don't recall what you will be doing for solids and bio-filtration? Are you able to ellaborate a bit (pending having and time to do so of course )?

Thanks

I think you are making good progress.

Hi Don. These are the holes I myself put in the liner to install a uniseal. I messed them up.

Furnaceboy, the IBC fish tanks are overflowing into 100 gallon (375 liters) gravel-filled stock tanks (see pic below.) Insulated and cladded fishtank on the left, in white, and the gravel beds on the right, piped through the greenhouse wall. The gravel beds then overflow into the troughs further on the right.




Thanks, Arbe!

I can not see what you did wrong to the liner hole by the pic's. Could you just put in the next size larger Uniseal and pipe in the hole or is it just in the wrong place? Did you rip the liner?

Maybe punt and use two 2" uniseals instead of one 3".

I have not used a design like that before, but I would have thought that they could easily plug up or not keep up with the required flow rate, and that maintenance would be difficult due to the rock? I guess it would depend on the fish load. I could be wrong, as I would assume that either you have done this before, or seen others use it successfully in a similar situation. I will be interested to see how they go over time.

I would have been inclined to use two (or better yet three, with the last being static for water polishing) recycled barrels with the first one using static floating media (like Kaldness k1 http://www.columbiawatergardens.com/Kal ... /k150l.htm) which could be backflushed using air, and a second barrel using the same media in a fluidised state (using air). Maintenance for this type of system is minimal, and they can't easily plug up (unless they were never backflushed, but I have never seen or heard of this happening). The cost mostly would be in the media, although it is not too much I would think when considering that the recycled barrels are very cheap. Of course with this type of system, you could not have earthworms, and accumulated solids would be removed by backflushing and purging the solids at periodic intervals. Some solids accumulations could be tolerated in the system for additional nutrient breakdown, to a point. I have used these very successfully and I believe it can support sufficient bio-culture to deal with nutrients from 5gms of food per litre of media in a fluidised state, which is pretty good.