Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Was wondering that myself..... when you do... twist their arms (off) until they tell you where they have their spares hidden

Hi RB, welcome. The wine barrels will want to acidify ur water over time. Fish respiration etc will also drag ur ph down. Potassium bicarb will help buffer ph and assist ur flowering plants at the same time. EBs book is a good read and it is handy to have a hard copy to fall back on for reference.

Thanks again Steve.Your right about the probes,they may be difficult/expensive to get, but I wont know until I look.

Hi twintragics,would there be any fish friendly substance I could paint the inside of the barrels with to seal them?I would use blue barrels but my wife wants it to look good as well as be practicle

See the discussion on this subject that has taken place in the last few days... check this thread

http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/vie ... php?t=2341

Thanks.You people are so helpful.

Could you buy a sack of shellgrit (chookgrit) and give it a rinse, then put some in base of barrels to stabilise pH?
Still getting my head around the kH/gH/pH certain plants like.... imagine it will all become clear once I actually have a setup setup.
How many trout could you keep in a 1000L tank?

Certainly could Don, and that's exactly what many members have done and continue to do for exactly that reason... especially as AP systems seem to drift pH down over time.

I Red Buddah ends up painting the barrels with a bitumen paint then any acidic effect leaching from the barrels will be negated anyway.

RB- when you cut your barrels length ways, what will hold them together?

Unless my brain is gone again I seem to remember that the barrels have straps that hold them together, are yours different?
C1

i knew there was a reason my way sounded better

Mmm...either that or your brain went before mine!

Shell grit will stablize to a point, but I have ended up adding 2 teaspoons a day of potassium bicarbonate to hold the pH steady around 7.0. I have 28 pounds of shellgrit in the system.

I will be tech screwing the steel bands to each section before it is cut,holding it together.

then you will have to waterproof it!
and tech the lid and base on too!
A mate of mine skims barrels for a living,
seems when you take the bands off the barrel falls apart.
But good luck and I would be happy to see barrels used in this
way.
Are they hogs heads?
size of the barrel

Red Budda

Wine barrel staves rely on liquid to expand and keep them watertight. Tech screws would not work (structurally unsound) and you would have real problems if you kept the liquid away from the staves. The only way to use half barrels is to cut them through the middle ensuring you have hoops at the top of each half ie you would have round GB's. They do sell half wine barrels this way. My son has kept goldfish and water lillies in half wine barrels so once they are aged I can see no drama's.