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sanford.in.belize
09-22-2009, 11:21 PM
Just a quick note to say thanks to all of you. Break troughs in this field rarely happen in the lab, ladies and gentlemen the frontiers of this next step of human achievement are in your own back yards and you are making this a reality.
Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this.

and now just a quick question if I may.

can you think of any reasons for not using a wooded trough lined with plastic as a GB for E/F system? sourcing the right materials is proving a bit of a challenge as well as an expense.

Any thoughts?

Thanks so much

sanford

badflash
09-23-2009, 02:06 PM
Should work as long as the lining can handle the abuse. Lining with pond liner is probable a better bet. I've seen beds made from exterior grade plywood, and yellow pine tongue & grove flooring.

BTW- Welcome!

sanford.in.belize
09-26-2009, 06:38 PM
Thank you badfish. I found some 6mm construction plastic i think will do the trick :)

sanford.in.belize
09-26-2009, 06:39 PM
Badflash :?
sorry my bad

badflash
09-27-2009, 07:30 AM
Just keep in mind that if you work in the bed wil a plastic liner it is easy to cut through it. The edges of stones or anything you are using to dig around with can cut it easily.

jackalope
10-01-2009, 07:52 AM
sanford.in.belize Welcome to the Forum! We are looking forward to seeing pics of your system when you get it set up. I have an old book on hydroponics which suggests using wood and plastic sheeting ..... when you want to change over/clean out the growbeds, you just throw the old sheeting away, instead of having to clean it ;) Any idea is probably a good idea, especially when you have to make do for materials ..... just as long as we avoid the materials that will poison the humans, fish, and plants ;-)

sanford.in.belize
12-09-2009, 12:37 PM
Hey Ernie
Wow Barton creek. Been up there and there are some pretty intresting people around there. I am in Belize city at the moment but got a nice bit of pine ridge near Hattieville. The country has pretty much written off pine ridge as being productive agriculturally but we are going to show them :)

Are you still in Belize? would love to meet

Not a Belizen as yrt, born Canadian. Love Canada too but -35 is just a little to much for me :)

TCLynx
12-10-2009, 10:46 AM
Plastic and lumber grow beds might work but you may also wind up with some major leak issues.

I've had experience with people trying to line ponds with heavy builders plastic. Problem is that stuff gets little holes real easy and multiple layers doesn't fix the problem. It is a lot harder to replace the plastic in a gravel filled grow bed than it is to replace the plastic for a water filled hydroponics trough. The simple act of dumping the gravel into a plastic lined bed might tend to punch little holes in the plastic depending on the type of gravel involved.

However, if it is the only material available and if the set up is done so some small leaks won't really cause major issues, then perhaps it is still appropriate to use. Arrange things so that leaks might be directed to some dirt planting near the system that can utilize any leaking water to benefit and so long as good top up water is freely available then it might be ok.

Anyone who has read through my system thread on the other forum, will know that I have run into some major problems with my lumber and pond liner grow beds lately. And I have some heavy duty pond liner, the heavy EPDM stuff. Stands up great to gravel scraping it but unfortunately, anything that can eat wood can chew through the liner too. Termites and carpenter ants have caused me to switch to rubermaid stock tanks as grow beds.