Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i was looking into pricing for doing something like this, every site ive looked at, HDPE sheets are cheaper then pvc sheets.
and from what i hear, is more food safe. it seems i can only find the type 1 pvc grey sheets online, none of them say anything about them being food safe. most sites advertise there HPDE sheets as FDA approved too. not sure on the actual difference in food safeness but HDPE does seem to be cheaper.
http://www.eplastics.com/Plastic/HDPE_Sheet
this site seems to be the cheapest ive found, i think 1/8 inch will work with proper support.
is there a way to epoxy this stuff together instead of plastic welding it?

so what welder are you using, is it the leister one or the Chinese one?

and what one do recon is worth buying?

Seems like plastic welding would be the only real way to go with HDPE as glues/epoxy don't work.
I wonder how much of an investment that would cost

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The real ones here cost about $800 and the cheap one is about $250 .but they look the same

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Perspex costs a fortune in au, I was looking at using some to suspend net cups for my DWC... then I priced some up $$$$ ouch

I used a Leister brand plastic welding gun, borrowed from work. I had looked at the Chinese ones on Ebay and for the differance in price, If I was to buy one I wouldmost likely purchase the Chinese one.
The grey pvc sheet was lying around a friends workshop for a few years so that came for free.
I'm not sure of the cost of sheets at the moment but if you are wanting a custom shape/size growbed I think it's a good
way to build it.
I hadn't thought about the pvc been foodsafe or not but I know our drinking water comes through PVC pipe often called Blue Brute or Big Blue http://www.jmeagle.com/plastic-pipe/pvc-pipe/index.html. I think I'll be ok, hope the fish will too.


Cheers
Chad

Hey any chance of an update is the plastic weld holding?

The plastic welding is holding good. I did have a pinhole leak in the first few days of setting up, so had to empty out the growbed and fix. Easy fix but emptying the growbed was time consuming. I regret not testing it just holding water for a few days before putting in the media & plants.
All is good at the moment, cycling fishless still. It has taken a while but starting to see water test changes this week, Nitrites went up a few days ago and now seeing Nitrates starting to increase with plants starting to look a bit better also.
I'll post some updated plant pics soon.

Did you hend up buying the plastic welder? If the Chinese one how was it?

Great use of the small area and a top build with the system

Em is going to get me the cheap one as a present. so ill let you know when i try it