Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

SLO is an acronym for Solids Lifting Outlet. It is the most common way for backyard fishtanks to stay clean.

SLO is zacktly what Ron said
I can say that the 30mm one I used for the DWC although is drain fine, is not as effective as the big 50mm in the FT


Made a bit of progress with The DWC tank today.

I 1st had heat the float and press in some indentations to accommodate the plumbing

I had to move the armaflex floats a bit so that they were directly above the air stones that way the bubble go to both sides of the float. Added 2 short ones for extra support.

Needed to drill the holes, I got the spacing a bit out so the last row is a bit closer than i wanted. Mostly the holes are 200mm apart 100mm from the edges.

Fixed the deck to the float and dropped it in the tank. Worked well.

Then cut a few slices of the Neoprene noodle I skollied from Sondor plastics. They gave it to me for free because they didn't have the colour I asked for.

The inserts were really easy to make. Just slice a disk off then make a slice in to the center. I did make the ones for the tomatoes a bit taller for more support.

They're ready to get inserted

This is what it look like by the end of the day

Here's a closeup
Don't know what plant this, I used masking tape for my lables and they all fell off.
To make matters worse the when i planted the seed a I dropped the grip i was using to carry the planted out seed trays. I half caught it but a couple got mixed up

Wow it's all looking great. Your DWC is a great lesson in reusing materials :-)
And I must tell you how impressed I am with your orderly growbeds, they look stunning!


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Why thank you good lady.
Probably because I spend way too much time hovering around them.

At what sort of temperatures does "full sun" not mean full sun and one needs to consider shade net?
What sort of percent shade does one go for?

Hi Mr Python, Also Capetonian here and been following your build. Just starting the planning of mine would it be possible to come and see your system?

Cobus

Sure thing. I'm on the tail end of Durbanville, Langeberg ridge, near cape gate.
Where are you based?

I'm in Bothasig next to N7.

Cobus

That's not far give me a call O8E 264 1B64 I'll be poking around in the garden this weekend.
Got to finish the trellis for the Tomatoes they're getting flowers already.

My daughter had a cooking thing for school and decided to do Leek Chicken... at the last minute with panic of course.
Went to the shop to get the parts for the concoction, she came back in a huff with a fair amount of stomping to say they didn't have leeks.

It was so cool to say there were leeks in the AP.

She did chirp that they might still have some pee in them, but being between the bottle and the label, she did agreed to accept my humble contribution to her ongoing development as a contributing member of society... well a member anyway.

I've been quite busy at work so not a lot of time to do much else, I'm the HR dude and times are tough so we all know what that means.

Anyway, a mate of mine on the bike forum is going nuts buying stuff to build his own AP system. He posted that he had bought some of those peat-moss pellet jobbies. I commented on the coolness of his acquisition and that I didn't know we could get them in South Africa. Till then I'd only seen them on overseas forums.

Next thing he sent me some in the post - man I was stoked, when the post office slip arrived I even got up early to go get 'em.

I planted some pimento pepper seed and some bell peppers seeds - Collected from actual peppers.
Will be interested to see if anything sprouts.

Not sure if the stuff we get in the shops is genetically engineered to the point where the seeds are sterile is that possible??

Made a bit of progress on the Tomato trellis this weekend between demands.
Some old Air-cons were stripped from one of the buildings and I scrounged 3 lengths electrical conduit.
Cut 4 x uprights and 2 cross pieces. Then I got busy with a heat gun.
I made flat spots for the connection to the uprights and hollows along the cross pieces for the overhead "beams"

I managed to get one side of the structure up before the reminders about what time we were due at the outlaws got too firm not to hear


The uprights are cable tied to the IBC cages and the cross bar flats are riveted to the flattened ends on the uprights.
The plan is to put up the other uprights with their cross bar then rivet lengths of conduit into those notches on the back "frame" there will be strings or wires running across with a vertical hanging down from the cross bar tied to the cross string/wires to make a net.

On a lighter note - Check out the back left corner of the raft, the part with a cluster of blank disks. You'll notice some sandy patches....
That's from one of the 6 friggen cats that's been hopping up there and walking around on the deck
I suppose if it can hold a full grown cat then a few tomato's and hopefully some bell peppers shouldn't be an issue.

It been 12 days since my last confession.
I've been doing snippets of work, a few minutes here a few minutes there.
Today I finished off the great Tomato trellis.
It's made from old electrical conduit I salvaged.
It's basically 2 frames with some overhead struts.

I'm not sure if the Heinz tomato's I have are the vine type or the bush type.
Either way it's a bit like what Adam said to Eve the 1st time "Stand back girl, not sure how big this thing's gonna get"
Some of the research pics I saw had plants growing round the green house roof.
Across the back frame I have Twine stretched across and the plants are secured to that.