Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You need Waaaay more holes in your media guard. Skip the drill, and grind slots in them. Media's likes to settle in round holes. Otherwise, awesome job so far!

Thanks Ron, good thing a friend told me to get an angle grinder. Maybe now I can say the holes are just there to make it fashionable with the slots. That would have been so much faster in the first place.

table saw is very fast too

Now that is fashionable, with those holes like that really adds a lot of pointless appearance.

On that note, here is my attempt to extend the RFF for my 55-gal barrel.


Any thoughts? I realize it needs some trimming still. Girlfriend says mine is not as phallic looking and that hurt my feelings a little bit.

Looking great so far! Great job! I really hope you can master that painting of the barrels because I want you to teach me how afterward. The one in the photo looks awesome!

There is a link under the photo where I got the idea.
http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2011/11/trompe-loeil-rain-barrel-tutorial.html

But while you're at it google/youtube search painted rain barrels and look at all the amazing stuff that shows up. Some of the simple and quick routes were holding a fern or palm leaf against the barrel to create a quick stencil.




I'm not sure, but I think that might be Ron the Pirate in that video? Or at least Ron's stunt double for when digging sump holes gets rough.

That guy does not have a bald spot peeking through, therefore I am jealous of both his fuller head of hair and the fact that he thought of painting a rain barrel to look like R2 before I did. Anyways, just as Christopher Walken needs more cow bell, your media guard needs more slots. Think more non-PVC than PVC. Media guards should be made up of mostly air.

I guess there are some things you can never have too much of... cow bell?

Nice!

Still needs more, don't be afraid to widen the slots too, this is one of those situations where the thick grind and cut wheels comes in handy.

So this media guard I assume eventually roots will push through these holes and slots, not just media, and that is why the required number is so much more then I expected. One day when I see a root grow through a slot I will say to myself... "good looking out Ron".

Plus... why not more cow bell?

Side note my effort to paint my 55-gal barrels to look like wooden barrels is coming out very orange and not enough brown, The textured effect is working well though, acrylic paints layer easily. Hoping to add some darker color today. It also helps to talk about happy little trees while painting the strokes.

Wow, the resemblance between Will Farrels cow beller and Bob Ross is kind of scary. Needs more cow bell... Needs more happy little trees... Coincidence?

Wouldn't it be awesome to stumble upon a gallery that had Bob Ross paintings with big old pissed off trees?!?

I added more cow bell (3rd time now)... aka slots for drainage in our media guards. I realize when Ron said "we need more cow bell" that he knew he was going to need to ask for more slots at least a few times. So with respect to Ron's knowledge and the fact that he is a pirate we complied.

We also managed to make some pretty cool barrels for our filters. These are normal blue plastic HDPE with acrylic and clear ploy on top...




The idea came from a link mentioned earlier in this thread. We probably could have painted one more black hoop on the bottom and made the lid darker or even tried to hand paint swirly marks in the "wood" but it took long enough to do what we did. And I was very happy with the appearance compared to the neon blue.

The test will be watching how these hold up after plumbing work, sunlight, time, etc. I put about 3 coats of clear poly after everything was done and it was sanded and primed before we started but I still have doubts about acrylic on plastic.