Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

but it's laying on the side the water will fall out,

anyhow good effort.

Interesting thread, am kinda surprised it isn't one of those 500 pagers....!

As a very later comer to the action, what ended up happening with the competition?

I remember a thread with a bit about some ideas to have a stealth AP system that came out of this.

The competition got extended but then sort of petered out... I had the miniature rubbish bin for the trophy ready to go but forgot all about the competition.. In fact I only threw them out just a couple of months ago.

I think Johnny7au won by default, he build a few different systems using bins. Haven;t seen Johnny for a couple of years now.

Lots of new blood in the forum....maybe time for a revisit? I'm still working on my first system cycling otherwise I'd be all over it!

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I am sooo disappointed my commercial bin project failed.. the crack I welded failed and i lost confidence that it could ever be considered safe, given the over 600L capacity.. and the considerable side bowing, needing structural support ..
Even got the window to seal OK.....

Still tempted to use a stainless band to reinforce the crack and try again, but OLD HDPE does embrittle in the sun, to a considerable depth..
..
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i have to say some of these are fantastic, i can't wait to set mine up and post the photos

Ok, armature here! However I like my setup and thought others may like it because it lets you watch the roots grow!

A few years ago I set up a small indoor winter system. I have a OLD 5x5 foot sun window in my dining room. I also have a 75 gallon fish tank at the base of the window. One winter I decided I wanted to see if I could get some fresh lettuce out of season so I built a ply wood shelf above the tank (poly/stained it for water protection) and put two huge but shallow Rubbermaid tubs up there (the short but big tub you can roll under a bed). I hooked a hose to the out of my tank power head (it just normally released into the aquarium) and I drilled/installed a gasket into the side of the 2nd tub to catch the overflow where the water would fall back into the fish tank. I also made a U shaped pvc and filled it with water connecting the two tubs which kept the two plastic bins equalized on water level. This PVC U let me fill the first bin and have the excess water flow "up" via gravity feed through the PVC U and into the second bin for flowing out of the the gasket as the water level raised equally in both bins. I then floated sheets of Styrofoam on top of the water in both bins. The Styrofoam had holes in it which I stuck the plants and let the roots dangle down in the water. Amateur first timer attempt. But seemed to work for me.