Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

First casualty:

Kathy made the tank cover:

...but it was too late for this fella.

Trick for young players. Trout jump.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

No worries.

System 1 taking off. Basil and English Spinach:


Twenty-nine little poo-producers:

DWC trays nearly ready to go:


Drains run back to one of System 1's sumps; once a pump turns up, it will feed from another of the sumps.

Thinking (for neatness and sheer cleverness) of running the pump feed tube (10mm vinyl) <i>inside<\i> the drain pipe.

Now on the lookout for a couple of large sheets of Coreflute for rafts.

What were those raft beds originally? Very neat.

p.s. corflute doesnt float.

Some sort of tray arrangement from a laboratory.

Coreflute sinks? Bother. I didn't want to use polystyrene for the sheer mess of the stuff.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Yea Ive been mucking around with ideas for my DWC as I dont want to use polystyrene either. Ive got the coreflute and cut the holes and Im thinking about glueing some floating material to it like camping mat or something. Or, maybe using a frame of some kind to make it rigid so it rests on the DWC and the net pots are in the water. Or, glueing a few sheets together and sikiflex the cores up so it does float (lot of work in that though).

Still un-decided what to do and Im open to idea's

On another forum, the idea was put out there to make a pontoon type of frame with a coreflute platform.
Put together a PVC frame, glue it together (no leaks), and lay the coreflute on top fastening with plastic zip ties. Cut holes for the net cups and you have a floating raft.

Michael, you have a good imagination and much creativity. I salute you in your system build.

Aww, shucks.

How are those trout going Michael??

Getting bigger. I'm wasting a fair bit of food at the moment, as not all the pellets break up - and the full-size pellets are still too big for them to eat and end up in the growbeds. But I hope the trout will be big enough to eat the unbroken pellets soon.

DWC experiment ready to start.

Water feed (vinyl tube) and return (PVC) from (and to) one of the sumps of System 1; the DWC pump sits in the sump:


The vinyl is cable-tied along the PVC which saves it from being crushed in the trench.

One of the tray drains with a T running off to the second - as well as the feed tube. I gave up on the lovely idea of running the feed inside the drain as I only had the idea after I had built the drains:


Pump running, water returning:


Gentle flow:


Ready for the coreflute, which arrived today - old Greens party election posters!:


Coreflute seems to sort of float - although, as the cores fill with water, it might not forever. So I'm going to build a ring of PVC around each coreflute sheet (four per DWC tray) as a float - which will also give the some structure to help when it's time to lift them out.

Tomorrow, I'll punch a grid of holes in the coreflute.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Since I have a bunch lying around, I decided to use low-density as the floats, rather than PVC, which I would have had to buy new.

Frame pieces:


Assembled:


For maximum density, I arranged the pots in a diamond pattern (this sheet forms a template; the tedious measuring and marking won't be needed on all the others):

Punch some holes with an awl (you don't have an awl? Do you have an old screwdriver and a bench-grinder (or angle grinder or file)?) and cable-tied the float frame to the core flute - ready to go.

Ever wanted to see your local member lying face-down in water?:


(Actually, that's unfair. Every politician I've met (of, God help me, any party) works harder than I have any desire to.)

It floats:


Now... once my net pots arrive, I'll determine the hole diameter I need, stack the sheets and hole-drill the lot as one.

(I won't drill holes where the float frame interferes.)

Net pots arrived. Stacked and hole-drilled the coreflute:


...over and over. Couldn't drill the lot at once, so stacked five, drilled through four and used the pilot hole in the fifth to place the holes in the send stack of four.

Ready to go:



Note the old washing machine hose keeping the vinyl tube dark (I knew I was a pack rat for some reason:


Other changes; I couldn't get the split water supply to balance, so I plumbed the two trays together as one volume, fed the water to one tray and drain from the other so as to ensure the water flows through both:




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD