Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It basically exits the end of the bed and directs underneath the bed and back to tank, maybe I havnt shown pics of it? If so, it was unintentional sorry.

When the structure was built and stained I bored a hole in the timber at one end (before the liner was in), I removed all the rough edges and continued on with the liner, once the liner was fitted nicely and basically complete I used a stanley knife to very carefully cut a hole in the liner where the hole was. I left water in the DWC right up to the hole so I could prevent stretching the hole at a later date when I was going to finally fill it. I cut the hole in the liner about 5mm too small so when I pushed the bulk head through it would be a tight fit. I also used sikaflex on both sides of the seals just to be sure.


Heres a pic I found in the archives..

Cool! Thanks for the detailed explanation

Very well thought out method.

Actually I had a look earlier in your thread Charlie, back at the pics when you were setting up your RFF and lo and behold there was a picture of the outlet

I should have looked more carefully.

Hey Chuck why did you go out the side and not the bottom with a stand pipe? I mean I am gonna guess you still have a stand pipe in there because otherwise that water hight would be too low for you. Did your liner start to twist on you when you tightened the bulk head? Cause mine sure did, that and the first time I filled I didn't tighten the bulk head enough.

Yea, there is a standpipe inside to set the high water line. There was 2 reasons I went through the side. Firstly, I figured if I had problems with the hole leaking into the timber it would be easier to replace that small section at the end instead of the base which goes the full length of the DWC. The other reason was that I could be a bit more flexible with where the return pipe was situated ie I could run it across the front, back or underneath just by moving the elbow. If this DWC goes to a new home I can sit it flat on the ground and it will still work. But there is no problems with having a stadpipe through the bottom, this just worked for me is all.

Hey Charlie I had a closer look at your corflute rafts and it looks like the ribs are going long ways rather than width ways in some pictures. (They probably were cut like this for shipping) But for a future raft if you had the ribs going width ways instead... maybe it would withstand the weight more. Did you experiment with this?

You might be able to improve your bracing method as well but I suspect you are already thinking about those possibilities.

Good eyes Mac. I cut the first 2 sheets opposite to each other to check how they would fair with weight added. The sheet that had the ribs running parallel with the water flow bowed the worst as you could imagine but after adding the horizontal braces it remained fairly flat because it had support from 2 directions (like a cross shape) if you know what I mean. The sheet (with the lettuce on it) has the braces and the ribs in the horizontal position and the ends are starting to roll over as the weight increases. I think another thing that might work, which someone mentioned to me a while back, is to sandwich two sheets together with the ribs facing different ways. I think that would work well too.

Awesome looks like you have already thought about it and experimented

The cross hatch idea with the two pieces might just do the trick. Although the braces might still be needed for heavier crops.

Little bit of a system update.

Started culling the SP to make way for the trout, cleaned up the beds a bit and took a few snaps. Still working on my skills with the new cam but enjoying it along the way. Ive got a bit of a cosmetic upgrade for the system next week so stay tuned..

Nice Silvers Charlie....

System is powering on!

Nice healthy looking plants and roots... must have excellent aeration!

Also there is something different and special about these particular photos... Lookin' good Charlie

Great looking fish and veggies. Everything looks tasty.

Hope you're enjoying the SP.

Regards, Martin.

And heres Charlie beating all the odds.

Silver Perch, trout and yabbies all living under the one roof.

Water temp... 23 deg.

My money is on half a trout floating in the morning

That yabbie is huge!

Very busy tank