Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Progress!

I got the first growbed stand beefed up with diagonal supports and legs and crosspieces and stuff, and put it temporarily in position and got it leveled, so I could see what I needed to do with the sump tanks. Turning them perpendicular to the length of the greenhouse does narrow the walkway a bit, but it's a livable amount, and I won't have to bury them very deep at all. Then I started digging, and I found this:
So I *do* have clay; I just have to go digging for it. Hopefully some more will show up when I get around to digging where I want the RMH thermal mass to go. I think the black layer is probably ash from the Mt. St. Helens eruption 32 years ago. There is geology happening, right in my greenhouse!

I also found the edge of our septic field, or so I assume. I started running into gravel, and then the end of a length of pipe, so I decided I'd gone deep enough, covered it back up a little, got the hole leveled out, and stuck the first tank in.
Then my husband texted me to remind me he'd be late because of a meeting, which reminded me I was supposed to be showing up for a meeting at work myself, and I had to go tearing off to try to remove enough mud to look respectable. Or at least enough that my coworkers would recognize me.

So that was it for today. Somehow, getting the first sump tank in feels like the biggest accomplishment so far. The next one will only need to be a few inches deep, due to the slope of the greenhouse; just enough to make it level with the first one, and the third will probably barely need to be dug in at all. Maybe I can even get as far as actually cutting an IBC before having to head back to work this weekend!

Hard to believe that the Mt. Saint Hellen's eruption was 32 years ago... I was to young to remember it, but I was around for it.

What media are you using, and what method of cycling are you going with.

I was just thinking you are getting close, so you could kick start the cycling by putting some media in a container, fill it with water, and drop an air stone in it. (and some humonia (pp) or some fish emulsion)

It will take 6 weeks if its cold.

I know I've said it before, but waiting for your system to cycle can be boring, and once you have some media with bacteria, it will speed up the maturation.

Or better yet, connect a tub of your media to someone's established system.

But you wont regret starting to cycle early.

I've just been looking at your area on google earth in relation to that VOLCANO you have a few miles away.

It's a good thing you have that hill and river in the way.

can you see it from your home?

I think scoria for the media. I haven't decided yet on cycling method -- probably humonia, since I tend to get impatient about stuff. Although I've got another temp job starting for 3 months next week, so that might keep me occupied enough to make the time go faster.

Would it help significantly if I got a cup or two of gunk from the bottom of the lake down the road from us to put in?


If not for all the trees we could. And probably also Mt. Rainier (which is much bigger and overdue for an eruption) and Mt. Hood, too.
Here's the satellite view of our property, and why we can't have solar panels (or see any mountains):

The property is a little more wedge-shaped than shown, but there's no wedge-shape option in the Mac Preview annotation menu. (The things that look like giant nail clippings where the greenhouse is now are the pieces of the 30x70' quonset hut kit the previous owners left behind. Anybody want to trade a giant quonset hut kit for a mini-earth mover of some sort?)

I lived in Texas during the Mt. St. Helens eruption. (I was a junior in college, RonMaggi!) I've seen the pictures/videos and heard the stories, though. It made one giant mess of this whole part of the country, even where it was too far away for the lava to reach. Dropping tons of ash on top of everything messes things up in a whole lot of ways. When we went to see it for the first time after moving up here, it had already been 17 years since the eruption, and the extent of the devastation was still just incredible. And mind-boggling. Nature is scary.

Scary, but necessary, if not for volcanoes we would all be wading waist deep in salt water. They provide the important uplift in the uplift and erosion cycle.

Australia doesn't have volcanoes, and it's flat really, really old, and large sections inland are below sea level. We could use a few.

The gunk from the lake might have disease and parasites. I wouldn't add it unless I was stocking my system with fish from the same water, and even then it's probably not a good idea.

Do you have a pump yet?

Are you going to run an air pump?

If you do it would be easy enough to start with a tub full of media with an air stone or two in the bottom, or a pump just pumping water back onto itself running for 5 minutes every hour or two.

How warm is your grow house?

I ask because I'm thinking about how long the system will take to cycle.

This made me think of TCLynx. The story is this farmer's request for a permit to build a horse shelter was denied. So he built a table and chairs, which didn't require a permit.

Good point.


Nope.


I've got a fountain pump and a couple of power heads, so that would be easy enough. I have an air pump somewhere too, but I haven't seen it in several moves, so it's buried in the boxes somewhere.


The average temp predicted this week looks like around 45ᵒF, which Google says is 7.2ᵒC. But it will be getting colder over the next month or two.

I just stopped for some lunch and to hunt down a star driver for taking apart the IBC cages, but here's what I've managed so far today:
Looks like access to the sump tanks will be even more open than I thought it would be. I might still put a leg in the middle of the front of the stand (there is one in the back), but if it's sturdy enough without it, it sure makes sump access a lot easier to not have one there, so I'm going to wait and see. I can beef it up in other ways too, if necessary...it's a WIP.

I think I'm going to slice the IBCs vertically for the grow beds, for uniformity in the cage pieces and to have support underneath all of them. I'll screw the cage parts down onto the stand for more solidity. Just to be safe I'm going to slice the cheap one first...that way, if I've miscalculated something, I'm only out $30. (It's the one I got cheap because it has a hole in it.) I can probably patch it, but now that I can only fit 5 grow beds in the greenhouse anyway, it can just supply the odd one instead.

IBC cages are not flat. Dangit. I can't tell which parts to screw down to the stand...might have to fill the thing with water to see how to level it properly.


And how the @#$%#$ do you cut a straight IBC slice, unless you just happen to have the world's largest bandsaw or something? They pretty much don't have any flat parts either. I had a grand plan of spinning it on a flat surface against a marker held at a constant height, but for as well as it worked, I might as well have just freehanded it.

Maybe this is why JT doesn't use IBCs. They would NEVER measure up to his level of perfection!

At any rate, this is how far I got today. And tomorrow's payday...maybe I'll go buy some plumbing! And a pump!

EDIT: Yes, I still need to raise the fish tank a bit. Otherwise that gravity feed thing isn't likely to work very well.

EDIT2: Maybe if I just started screwing it down, while sitting in it, I could force it to flatten. Hmmm.

That makes me nearly as happy as the concept of being able to market seamonkeys

I've sent it to my mum

My everything hurts. I think the 6 wheelbarrows-full of soil I dug up, hauled out of the greenhouse and spread in the corner of the yard I want to build up are taking their toll. Or maybe it was just the part where I forgot to remember how old and out of shape I am.

Ow.

My dad sent me one of these for Christmas.

I think the rule is since it was delivered in a box with its picture on the outside, and as a result I already know what it is, I don't have to wait until Christmas to open it. Right?

I bet it cuts PVC really well.

It'll be covered in white dust by Christmas!