Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I saw some half wine barrels at $40 about 80cm plus in diameter. They are not water tight because when they are cut they open around the joins abit. Although some seem in better nick than others. What do you think if they were lined with plastic and what about the pipes, any suggestions, would these work as grow beds? They look much nicer than the blue barrels!

People here use 1/2 wine barrels all the time for planters and patio ponds (with a liner). They do look nice, but termites will discover them if they are sitting directly on the ground.

Folks pretty much use PVC for piping, or sometimes flexible vinyl hose. There are not a lot of other choices unless you have a bamboo stand nearby.

If they are not water tight and you have to line them, it wouldn't matter if you drilled the drain hole in the side or bottom. They would look much nicer than blue drums.
If you're lining them with appropriate liner, it wouldn't matter if the wine was still leaching out of the wood.

If you could find FULL wine barrels, I would happily come around and drain them for you

They would look alot better than the blue ones. I'm wondering, if you filled them with water with out a liner, would they swell and seal like wooden boats do?

even if they didn't swell and seal completely, the biofilm would possibly do the rest for you within a month or so.

good point mon.

I was going to suggest the potable water safe bitumen paint posted here a few times ?

Rob had another idea. What about we built a grow bed simply with a number of railway sleepers in afairly large rectangular shape. It would be next to our pool which is about level with the top of the pool water. Line it with plastic. The pool pump runs along side where the gro w bed would be, water gets pumped it at the top of the grow bed. The land is naturally slanted and the water will be pumped back into the pool. It would be cheaper and I would look okay too.

How safe is industrial type plastic?

Julie, its gonna come back to the numbers game on that one! I bet ya its safer than smoking, and probably safer than sprayed food, but who knows?

so is it going to be a flood and drain? can you describe the water flow once in the bed?

The bed will be on a slant so water flow will go from the high side of the slant to low and somehow back into the pool..

so not a flood and drain then? more of a flooded continuous flow? Personally i wouldn't use that method. Check out this thread here, has been discussed a little recently. But thats just me.

http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/vie ... highlight=

I'd be more inclined to level the bed out and make it into a flood and drain by flooding with the pump and then having it switch off and SLOWLY draining via a joel style stand pipe. A LARGE bed with your pump might work well.

THis is what you do with half wine barrels. Or this case a whisky vat. Smell great the first 3 years now its getting kinda old and mom is looking for another one. As long as it stays wet the wood stay expanded and no water leaks out.

Double Post Bloody internet

Yep, that's what I meant.

The only trouble i see with painting is the timber needs to be wet otherwise it shrinks and will then crack the paint