Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That is making me dizzy but excellent Idea!

See what you mean gf, those spirals.....interested to see how it goes Dave, when do you think you will have a prototype up & running

Yep, I wanted to get some weatherstripping to try rolling but couldn't yesterday.

I made some pesto and our blender didn't work worth a damn. I had to find the food processor and use that again. It tasted better this time I think, though it was relatively chunky style.

Would it be food safe?

The sheet is PVC, and I'll try to get some known material foam/tape/strips. They make PVC foam tape, and if the whole thing is PVC I could glue the whole thing together like with piping. The center "axl" woould be a PVC pipe cut into two halves and glued together. The the sheet would be glued onto the axl.

Update, I got two rolls of PVC foam weatherstripping that you'd use to put a cap on your truck/ute. I will try to isolate the foam from the water a bit by using a lot of silicone as I'm not sure of the food safety of the stuff and the adhesive that is on one side of it.

The plan for the exchanger now is to use two header buckets, each with an overflow, and a small pipe on the bottom. Two pumps would fill the buckets depending on a timer. The pumps would keep the buckets full to overflowing, and the small pipes would leak out into the exchanger (bucket hopefully), gravity would cause the water to leak out the exchanger out the spirals and the warm water would go downstairs and the cold water down into the plant sump. I would hope that having them both full up to the same level would ensure some equality in the two flows. This would be simpler than trying to regulate pump flows.

I bought a new 180 gallon Tuff Tub from Tractor Supply today, as well as the 90 gallon 3' x 5' contractor mixing tub (from the same company as my current tub). I paid $50 more than I thought I should but it had to be special ordered. It is way cheaper to get stuff that is in stock in the store, but the 180 gallon tub is what I wanted, as well as the mortar tub for a new big grow bed!

http://www.tufftubs.com/htdocs/mixingtub.htm

When they arrive the plan is that the 180 gallon will be the new growout, the 110 will become the sump, and the 70 gallon will go upstairs to be the plant sump, servicing the mortar tub for more plant mass. I will also hook up the round plant containers from last year with some tomatoes or otherwise...

The Tuff Tubs look nice! Glad to know you have room to expand the project.

... oh ... sh*t ...

Freecycle works!

These are the three FREE 20 gallon aquariums + filters etc. I got from a nice local person through freecycle.

www.freecycle.org

Good Score! The sad thing is that I gave away a 55gal aquarium/equipment/stand a couple years ago, not knowing the spectre of AP was looming in my future.

I sold a solar panel 2 months before the bug bit me

Almost snagged a free IBC tonight. It was beside the road on the way to work this morning. I checked it out after work; it was a little squished but otherwise okay. We had dinner and I loaded up the wife and boy but it was gone by the time we got there. It was one of the half-size ones, 165 gallons? They are lighter than I had imagined...

I am after some ibc also dave I saw some down on the Oklahoma border on my way back from Texas along the hiway. About a mile up the road there was a place that sold chemicals of some sort that also had ibc in the lot. Did not have time to check on availability. It was a Tuesday so not the best of times to check on cheap access.

Power went out this morning for a little over an hour. I bailed water from the sump to two of the beds to get the siphons aerating the water. It's back on now - yay!

See!!!! - warned you not to encourage other forumers to put shyte on Les...let this be a warning