Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

And that T is important so your fishtank cant siphon itself dry as well.


[That's no doubt not really an issue with the size of the SLO, and probably not dry regardless, but the more water you can keep in the fishtank after a pump failure the better, and without the T it might empty down to the height of the outlet

I think

(I dont run a SLO inside the fishtank, but use the tap fitting of the IBC)


]

Progress! Today we finished the other end of the greenhouse, reattached the purlin pipes at the proper heights, and installed the bench rails. Well, as much as we had lumber for. All that's left for finishing the structure is to reattach the plastic, and then I can start working inside, on things like grow bed stands. Yay!

Here's a shot of my door. I'm very proud of this door, because I made it all by myownself. And it works, and everything!


These are the hinges FenceGuy used on the old doors. Two flimsy little cabinet door hinges, for 4' wide plywood doors. And already beginning to rust, since they were never meant for outdoor use.


Also, OUCH! The power driver slipped off the head of a screw and slammed into my fingertip. It hurt all the way to my elbow for a while, there. It's a good thing I was wearing gloves.

Once upon a time we called that Makita bite (back in the days when most people used the makita power screwdrivers/drills.) They hurt, I've seen people go through their fingernails that way before too.
Ouch.

Back to the old conversation about spit. I can understand how saliva of others could be thought nasty. Once upon a time back in college I had a voice class at the school of music, unfortunately the class was on Monday in a room that was closed up all weekend and the class at the end of the week was for large brass instruments. I'm not grossed out by the fresh saliva of healthy people bu the stale spit really grosses me out (it really stinks, people might no realize.) The quantity of spit dumped out of brass instruments is definitely enough to impart a smell to a room.

I love the name. It's much better today, except when I forget and use it for something. It's amazing how many things require the use of the outer tip of your non-dominant index finger.


Okay, that IS gross.

Of course. Duh.

The rain came back in earnest today, and forecasts say it's here for the foreseeable future. *sigh* Also, we've got the Gbaby for the weekend while her mommy visits friends out of town, which I knew would slow things down a bit.

I left her with "Bop" and went out to fasten down the plastic, which had already collected several hundred gallons of rain and was hanging down ominously between the rails and bows in several places. Managed to get it pulled taut and fastened down on both ends, as well as getting soaked to the skin with icy rain. I still need to fasten it to the rim boards along the south side, but crawling through cold mud in my already soaked condition just was more than I could accept for today. It won't hold water now, anyway, and any wind is more likely to come from the north, so I think it will be okay until the rain lets up or I have the fortitude to brave it again.

Before I came back inside to sip hot chocolate and dry out by the fire, I stuck in some plants, just to make it official.

Well now that the greenhouse is covered you can work in the greenhouse while it is raining out.

Good job now on to the next step, well, once the finger heals.

Yes'm! *salutes smartly*

I'm still unsure of how much support it takes to securely hold up an IBC-slice growbed filled with scoria and water. I like the benches made by the guy I bought my greenhouse kit from (stevesgreenhouses.com), and since it's designed to hold up a full load of freshly watered potted plants, it seems like it wouldn't need much beefing up to hold a growbed. Here's a photo from his website:

The side against the wall of the greenhouse is built onto the 2x4" bench rails screwed into the bows of the greenhouse. The top is made of 1x3" strips, and the front is another 2x4" rail. The benches shown are 32" wide. If I built them 48" wide and added another row of 2x4s down the center, with 2x4" (or even 4x4") legs every 4 feet on the outer edge and every 8 feet down the center rail, would that be sturdy enough to hold the weight of the grow beds?

I would go 4x4 support legs. And I might be a little worried about just depending on the screws into the greenhouse bows for support on that side. I might beef up to 2x6 instead of 2x4 as the supports under the IBC beds.

As for the 1x3 slats, I don't think they are really needed for your purposes to support IBCs, you may need some 2x4 or 2x6 in strategic places for support but you don't necessarily have to slat the whole top to make a plant pot bench.

Good point about the 1x3s. I was thinking of them as adding structural integrity, but a few 2x4" cross rails would achieve the same purpose. Shoot, now that we got the cool drill bit that makes holes in galvanized pipe like drilling into butter, I could even incorporate the IBC cage parts into the structure for more solidity.

I can easily add some 4x4s at intervals under the bench rails to beef them up. I have a lot more confidence in my carpentry skills, now that we've rebuilt the greenhouse, and am feeling a lot less challenged by the idea of building grow bed supports. Maybe it's a good thing FenceGuy did such a terrible job.

We knew that you would come around!

It's also gotten Hubs feeling more invested in the whole aquaponics thing. Today I showed him your system photos. I had told him the story of the patio system, but I guess he never really got the image of the scale of the thing. He was VERY impressed with what you accomplished, and announced that he thought you're the sort of person he'd enjoy meeting. (I already knew that, since he and Dave are very much alike, and you and Dave hit it off great.)

Structural stuff is far from my comfort zone, but a match stick can support an absurd amount of weight as long as it's vertically applied to a vertical match stick. But stacks of stuff I've built has fallen over due to lack of a diagonal brace on either of the vertical planes. A diagonal brace just cant be stretched, where as an un-braced rectangle can become a bunch of sticks on the ground in a slight breeze.

Currently I cant remember if this is relevant or on topic, but sometimes it's good to share

I have some 1/2" electrical conduit (pipe) left over from the greenhouse, because for some reason instead of buying the 4 I needed for adding the missing knee braces, I bought a bundle of 10. Or maybe even 12. I'm thinking they'd make great diagonal reinforcements.

I'm itching to go do something in the greenhouse...but I still have Gbaby, because her mommy arrived home exhausted and I packed her off to bed to sleep off her whirlwind weekend trip. And the all-American day of gluttony known as "Thanksgiving" is looming, with a boatload of adult kids and their partners expecting all their favorite traditional dishes (they inconveniently all have different favorites) so I probably need to do some grocery shopping before there's nothing left on the shelves...although on second thought, I may leave that for tomorrow, in hopes the crowds will be smaller on a weekday. I hate shopping.

(I'm a very good rationalizer. I don't want to do it today, therefore tomorrow is obviously the more logical day to do it.)

So...maybe when my lovely daughter is back among the living, I will go buy some lumber. I actually need to dig holes for the sump tanks, but I think I want to build a grow bed bench first, so I can play with how the sumps will fit underneath and see how deep they're going to have to be in order to be accessible via the space between them and the benches. And how deep the first one is going to have to be in order to be on a level with the 2nd and 3rd, which will be dug into respectively lower parts of the slight slope the greenhouse sits on.

I know I'm supposed to be able to do that in Sketchup, but my skill level with that is such that it could conceivably take me the rest of the year to get it to a point where I can tell how it's going to work, whereas I can just go out there and DO it, and possibly have it figured out in the next few days (in between working and cooking and other chores).

In my family, if you have a favorite, you make it. I think that thanksgiving should be more of a potluck. It is asking too much for the host to make the turkey AND everything else.