Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

These pictures are not in any order but you get the ideal of the carnage and damage I have caused over the last two days in the quest for......hmm not quite sure.... Still it was all storm damaged so this was the ideal opurtunity.

Caps from the up flows had been stood for ten months with just a small amount of water in the bottom, OH my god didn't that stink when it was disturbed,that's the sort of thing you don't forget in a hurry.

The bottom basket of the trickle tower had mysteriously collapsed,maybe four layers were just to much weight,I will re think that,I was running decoupled but ten months of no water in the second sump for ten months has meant it's developed a crack and leaks a lot very quickly. I reckon I will demolish this and go back coupled,it's easier and it frees up more space that I need.
Well back to it,I have a meeting with a greenhouse builder later,greenhouse is going up to 6x12m,that's my limit of space but should allow me to grow what I want,still not sure how to fill the space,but alongside the pair of troughs a Dutch bucket system appeals to me,there's space for 50 to 60 buckets.......
More to follow.

I have come up with a cunning plan to DIY 60 degree cones for 55 gallon barrels,I constructed the cone on Mylar so I get to use in again,then placed it on one of my old filter barrels and traced around it. With the template removed I carefully cut the form out with a jigsaw,not as easy as it seems with the barrel deciding to get very floppy and difficult to hold when your half way through the cut.
The difficult thing was now pulling the two half together,I first screwed one side to a strip of wood,then by brute force forced the second half into place with a little careful sanding at the edge where the jigsaw didn't cut straight and its there and actually looks like a cone. Plan is now to clean up the edges,give em a good chamfer and weld this bad boy together,still not sure on the step after that but let's see if it welds up and still looks like a cone.

Here's the jolly old cone,Iam finished for day now so I will start again on the morrow,still not sure of joining it to the barrel yet,I reckon it will hopefully com e to me as I start piecing them together.

Holy moley, you have an incredibly beautiful yard. I thought you built that pond? From the way you are describing the filter material it sounds like you didn't. Oh yeah, those were DWCs you built last year.
For those of us living vicariously through you and your build, I think we're going to need an aerial shot so we can get the big picture of your upgraded layout.
Was there a particular function for the pond before, or was it ornamental?
Working with Bamboo which it looks like you have just recently cut does add magnificent aspect to your build. I can't tell you how much pleasure we're deriving from seeing this.
A lot of good folks out there have created their own Youtube channel for their projects.
Conversely, I've tried a few video editing programs on Linux, but I have zero idea what I'm doing. The programs I've downloaded are not very intuitive and I'm too antsy to read manuals these days.
I just l keep on grinding out projects with what I've learned over the years.
I love life in the DIY lane too.
Brian

The old koi pond was how I started this journey into AP,back home I incorporated a vegatable filter to help control nitrates,when I built the pond I googled vegatable filters,discovered Aquaponics and the rest is history as they say. Originally I fitted 8 barrel halves as part of the filtration but soon discovered the problems with over 14000 litres,the main one being dosing,so it got broken down,moved and that's where we are now.
I have been playing with this for nearly five year and with the storm damage plus what I learnt from Ryan,this set up is going to be the last and hopefully right.
I like the ideal of having a drone and flying over the house and system taking pics,hmmmm might have to start looking around the markets on the border to see what's available.

More work today on the coned bottomed 200 litre RFS,not as easy as I thought it was going to be and definitely taking more time than I thought,still another rainy day here,so working in the dry was a bonus. I will finish the welding tomorrow and test it for leaks,fingers crossed on that one.

Your'e so cool man. I can not believe how nice the cone came out. I had made a few similar projects over the years, using various materials, nothing ever came out looking so symmetrical. Getting the material to bend and stay bent while I weld it has always been the most difficult part of the build. How did the new plastic welder do for you? From what I can see those welds look perfect. Nicely done. How many liters is the barrel now?

I too am going through Ryan's course, but not at a leisurely pace for system needs a redesign, and it needed it yesterday. I like what I'm seeing on your homebuilt RFS and hope it performs as expected and with NO LEAKS!

Do you think the weld on the seam for the cone will hold or will it require some sort of outside reinforcement?

Adam

Brian,I am teaching myself plastic welding as I build this project,I was taught welding during my apprenticeship and did further courses as I was into restoring old cars and enjoying the fabricating welding part of the restorations. The cone welding could have been better,I had a couple of small seeps that proved difficult to stop but after several attempts they did,the welding of the cone to bin was better. When I fitted the cone it was a good fit in the lower half leaving a lip on the outside to fill with weld,I have done one run with the intention of doing two more at the top and bottom of the first bead,I will post pics when it's done.
The welder is great,does what it says on the box as they say,so glad I went for the 1600 watt and not the cheaper lower wattage guns,if I was going to do more of these I would make a jig with a curved face to match the inside diameter of the cone,I suffered with distortion on the top and bottom edge due to the flat piece of wood it was screed to,all part of the learning curve.

Hi Adam,when I did the course I was my fathers full time carer and he was sleeping a considerable amount of time so I had loads of free time,I finished the course in under 14 days,as soon as I started I got hooked and couldn't wait to do the next session. One of the reasons I took this system apart to start again,was partially the storm damage required the greenhouse being done but also with Ryan's course under my belt I could see the amount of guess work that went into what I had built.
Hahah we had leaks in the cone straight away but they were easy to cure with a little extra weld,I have approached the cone to bin weld differently so Iam hoping not to many leaks as it's hard to test,I put the hole for the connector in the base otherwise it was proving impossible to fit the cone,now the hole is working against me as with the connector fitted it's that much more difficult to support the bin to test.
The weld seems ok,if you look on the inside the first weld has pentatrated through the joint,there are two more weld on top of that again,fingers crossed when I fill it up for the first time,for support Iam going to sit the tank into a sand fill hole,that way I can get my height where I want it and the cone can bed into the sand to support it.

I currently have too many irons in the fire and I have to get up a bit earlier in the am to be able to get some units done. It is having to relearn the math and all the conversions. I have started to try and do all my measurements in decimal ft/in which is commonly done for grading/drainage in the building industry. It is flushing out the rest of the imperial system that is taking some time.

I am approaching Ryan's course with way more enthusiasm than when I learned similar subjects the first time back in school and maybe it'll stick this round?!?

better get the coffee brewing and after it before the sun rises.

Adam

Oh yes, now that you mention getting the edges of the bend of the cone to meet, it all comes flooding back to me.
Brute force and finesse. You did it! I'm envious of the skill and knowledge you possess!
One of my favorite trades when I was starting out was auto body brazing. I never did it professionally. I was an apprentice Volkswagen mechanic in a dealership back in the late 70's. They had a body shop where they repaired bodywork in a way they do not do anymore. I was fascinated and bought a gas welding rig to play with. Anywho, it was long ago, I still have the welding rig and use it often as I love DIY fabricating. I am so impressed with your first barrel fabrication.

What will this cone bottom barrel be used for?

Which plastic welder did you go with?

Andy, I have made it through your entire thread after about 3 days of reading. First, sorry for your loss this past year. There have been quite a few people around me pass the past few months and it is tough for me even though they weren't immediate family, so I hope everyone has started the road to recovering from your losses.

For the less serious side, after reading through most of the posts in this thread I can only say how glad I am that you've shared your many erection projects with us and how you continue to improve with bigger and better erections as you learn how to use your erection more effectively over the years. It is sad to return home after 10 months of no erection and see that lack of use had put it in such poor shape, but I cannot wait to see what the new erection will bring.

This thread is one of the great ones! So much information here. I'm sure I'll have to go back through it two or three more times as I work to upgrade my system to really figure out what I want to do next! Now I'm off to Amazon to order some foam cubes because one of the things I've been struggling with is how to start seeds the best way and that seems so much easier than starting them in dirt then risking damaging the roots when I pull them out of dirt and place them in DWC. Are the foam cubes biodegradable or are you somehow able to reuse them after harvesting? It seems like they are probably a one and done cube right? Just curious what to do with them afterwards if they are going to compost or going to be around forever?