Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

yep, dug a trench to take all the water through the garden.

Yeah so did I, my Monkey Magic mousepad inspired my avatar

I'd say just level to grow bed with some 15 mm spacers.... Unless you are worried about the FT not being level.

I guess if the FT is not filled it is no big deal though. Better to do it right from start.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking..
Instead of trying to level a flat patch of dirt which is really really annoying, I decided to sit the IBC on top of some clay house bricks. This will make it MUCH easier to level as I am only leveling 9 points, instead of infinity points
I don't have enough bricks either so I have to use some stacked pavers, just to make it a little more challenging..
Just came in because it's too dark to see what I'm doing unfortunately, at least I'm making progress

Soak a representative sample in acid to see how much limestone you have. I rejected any gravel that fizzed!

is limestone that bad for the system ?
You mean I have to go through and pick out all the limestone ones (if any) ??
Screw that, if it's that bad Ill have to ditch the whole lot and buy some different stuff..

Do you think Rust Converter will work? It is phosphoric acid.
....googling.....

molar mass of phosphoric acid=
(3+31+64)=98g
mass pf 2 moles of phosphoric acid=196g
molar mass of Ca3(po4)=(120+31+64)=215g
196g ofphosphoric acid produce 215g of calciumphosphate so,xg produce 3.09g of phosphate.
x=2.82g

apparently so..

If I have limestone I'm gonna be P*&%^*#$

Finally have some some level ground to work with. Leveling the bricks was much easier than the bare ground..
No they are not perfectly in line because I really didn't care. I made sure they were spaced correctly +/- 20mm.



And just for reference, here is the bottom of the plastic IBC cage base.
Notice that it would probably be a bad idea to removed the center section for the screw cap if you wanted to put the GB in the base.

Level !! (by about 3mm)

Awesome man! Are those beams under the grow bed just to widen the base a bit or is there addition support?

Cant wait till my days off next week and i can get started

SuperVeg, well done, awesome system!

My comments would be, if you are concerned about the gravel, grab a cup worth as a sample and fill it with vinegar. If you see the rocks bubbling that means it contains calcium deposits, which is less than ideal...


Another word of advice would be absolutely make sure your foundations for your tank are right. I found out the hard way. After filling my tank it slipped off one of the foundations (a brick). After having to crane it up with a 1.5t digger and 8tonne drag chain, it can be annoying retrospectively fixing your tank footings, especially if you wanna save your water

Hope it continues to go well!

Thanks the 40mm square box pipe is mainly to provide support for the IBC liner (it actually narrows the base a bit but distributes the load better), if you have a look at previous photos you will also see I have used 4 sets of builders steel strap as well. The builders strap goes perpendicular to the box pipe supports.
I also have to add some bits of timber to support the recess in the IBC lid, so the weight doesn't distort the liner and reduce the maximum amount of water that will fit in the GB. I haven't finalised that bit yet but will be soon. Ill make sure I take a stack of pics to show it clearly.

Thanks idzy,
Less than ideal, individually remove all the limestone rocks (screw that!) or get new gravel?, or less than ideal try and guess the amount of limestone rocks in the gravel and HOPE it won't buffer the ph too strongly ??

So will limestone just buffer the ph to around 7 ? (just neutralise the acid?)
Is this a problem? Is it preferable to have a ph less than 7 for trace element availability ?


I'm very confident in the foundations I made sure it was pretty much exactly level (the funny thing was when I put the IBC on my new foundations the base wasn't flat at all ! it wobbled side to side by about 30mm ! 600kg of water sorted that out though), the dirt seemed to be about 50% crusher/cracker dust and I packed it well under each clay brick. My only concern was the clay bricks cracking but even then, the ground is quite hard I didn't see this as a big deal. And the result at the end was that the GB on top of the FT is out of level by about 2-3mm, that that could be my cutting of the liner...

Just been trying to get all the little annoying things done like painting.. Its not good for an impatient person like me.. maybe it is good.

Anyway, this is my 40mm boxpipe platform for the GB. I screwed it to some bits of pine to hold it in place and painted it all with free paint.

This is the paint I used.
I got some decent primer cause I didn't like the idea of buying paint (which is bloody expensive if you think about it).
This is White Knight Grip-Lock Primer. The bunnings dude said it was good to use anyway He said its good for painting things like PVC pipe and shiny nickel finishes on steel etc.

Just realised that the Green paint I got has mildew inhibitors.. hope its ok for the fishes and bacteria..

Pics of the primed and painted plastic bits