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  1. #21
    Members bsfman's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    Quote Originally Posted by keith_r
    i was thinking a beer bottle would probably be good as well.. you may have to put some "slits" in the end of the pipe, but you could probably melt a patch into the slits..

    Didn't need to make the slits, Keith. It worked like a charm - took less than three minutes! I used the flared 1" standpipe in a 2" bell, so I didn't make the flare very wide (had to leave a little wiggle room for the water to pass by the flare) I could have easily made it wider than I did though. Here's a couple of pics...




    In fact, I used the same beer bottle to widen the ends of the 1" hoses that came with the Intex pool so that I could clamp them on the outside of 1" PVC pipe. That worked like a charm too!

  2. #22
    Members bsfman's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    Finished building the growbed yesterday, added the liner, and filled with pea gravel media salvaged from the armageddon system. Had to add 20 more bags of gravel today to fill it entirely. The old media was clean, so I packed it around the siphon and added 20 bags of unwashed gravel. The old media provided enough filtration that the dirt and dust from the new media never clouded the water in the fish tank.

    I spent a LOT of time diddling around with the bell siphon today. This was the 7th bell-siphon I have built and it was by far the most difficult of them all to get tuned. I finally got it working just about perfectly with an almost exact 15 minute cycle time. By my ciphering, I am inputting water to the GB at 459 gph and dumping it out the siphon when it activated at 700 gph. Averaging 5:13 min fill time and 9:47 min drain time. That fill rate is fast enough that I had difficulty getting the siphon to break. I learned a lot about siphon tuning (only took me 6 prototypes today to figure it out!) The big lesson learned: the smaller the headspace between the top of the standpipe and the bell, the faster the siphon start and the slower the break. Conversely, the GREATER the headspace, the slower the siphon start and the quicker the siphon break. A standpipe of 1 1/2" would have been easier to tune at the flow rate I wanted to use. I also could have throttled down the pump outflow, but wanted a faster system water turnover so I tried to avoid doing that. The combination of a 5" headspace in the bell and a 1/2" nylon tube as a siphon break assist solved the problem.

    I forgot to include the GB end caps in computing the length of my liner trim, so I have big gaps at the corners. That's cosmetic and I can address it later on. I still have to do the permanent input plumbing attachments also. Right now my fill pipe is laid across the top of the GB and held in place by a couple of pieces of 2X4 trim. There is a lot of painting yet to be done as well. But hey! I'm up and running with a stand build like a brick house, a media filled growbed and a near perfect siphon cycle time! I'm a tired, but happy camper!

    Here's a slideshow of the last couple of days work...


  3. #23
    Moderator urbanfarmer's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    What genius!

    How hot is that gun? I wonder if boiling water would be adequate?

  4. #24
    Members bsfman's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    Quote Originally Posted by urbanfarmer
    What genius!

    How hot is that gun? I wonder if boiling water would be adequate?
    I doubt boiling water would be hot enough, but you could CAREFULLY use a propane torch to soften the PVC - just keep the flame a bit away so the distant heat, not the flame, heats the PVC. The PVC will scorch easily. I've done this with a torch making PVC strawberry towers, but the heat gun is easier and less likely to singe the PVC.

    Edited addition: I bet you could "toast" the PVC over a charcoal grill (like toasting marshmallows) to get it hot enough to soften. Wear gloves!

  5. #25
    Moderator davidstcldfl's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    Looking good bsfman...

    I noticed you had rolled your discharge 90 some, just before the water goes into the fish tank.
    I tried something I saw over at Affnan's....add a section of pvc that goes straight down into the water, which has holes drilled in the length of it. It add extra air, and seemed to make it more quiet too, if that is a concern.
    http://affnan-aquaponics.blogspot.com/2 ... iphon.html

    @UF...I thought you bought an industrial type heat gun at harbor frieght some time back, when they were on sale...?
    "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - President Ronald Reagan

  6. #26
    Moderator urbanfarmer's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    OH YEA! It was a plastic welder. I could try it. The air it shoots out is in a very thin stream, maybe... I think the nozzle is largest without any adapters on it... now just to find it...

    I can't believe you remembered that and I didn't... LOL, this forum has its benefits

  7. #27
    Moderator davidstcldfl's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    I'm just starting my coffee...so I'm surprised too....
    I didn't remeber you bought a pvc welder, but your right it should work...
    "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - President Ronald Reagan

  8. #28
    Members bsfman's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    Put the finishing touches on the armageddon system rebuild yesterday. The hardest part was painting the stand supports. I had to crawl underneath to reach all the spots I had previously primed but not painted. Tight cramped quarters under there and I acutally got stuck for about 5 minutes before I could extricate myself!



    I also permanently attached the input plumbing using shims and perfed steel tape...



    I cheated a bit and bought some bell peppers and tomato plants rather than starting from seed. I did cut some suckers off my existing tomatos and rooted them too. Butternut squash and cucumbers were seeded. I should see sprouts from them next week...





    This pic shows the growbed, the biofilter and fish tank. The small pool, strawberry towers and plants to the left in this photo are part of my mini system.



    As is typical in my painting endeavors, I seemed to get almost as much paint on me as I did on the GB stand. It hurt like hell scrubbing all that blue paint off my beard and neck in the shower! (I think I accidentally painted my beard while trying to disentangle myself while painting underneath the maze of supports and cross braces!)



    The growbed is still on an almost exact 15 minute cycle, which makes me happy. I had experienced quite an algae bloom in the fish tank before I got the grow bed built. In two days, the growbed has completely cleared the algae. The old media in the biofilter really helped with cycling. Both ammonia and nitrites are back to zero. Nitrates are about 10ppm.

    I learned a few lessons for construction of the matching growbed which I will do later this summer. The main lesson is that all priming and painting of the support structure will be done BEFORE I get every thing assembled!

    I am really impressed with using the Intex pools as fish tanks. This one is 8 foot diameter and ran me about 60 bucks from the local Target store. (The 60 bucks included a 500 gph pump which so far is working like a champ!) Each pool has an inlet and outlet and comes with hoses and fittings for the pump. There is a screw-on cap that fits over the outlet to seal it off. I have the outlet sealed off with the cap, and hooked the pump to the inlet where it draws water and pumps up to the growbed. This has given me an idea about modular expansion though. I am considering buying a second pool and hooking the two together via the hoses. The second pool pump would pump from the fish tank to the second pool and a T fitting in the other connecting hose would pump from both pools to the growbed(s). I can use the second pool as a grow out tank for fry to replenish the fish Tilapia I harvest for the table.


  9. #29
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    Those are some sharp looking growbeds, bsfman. Thanks for sharing your experiences!

  10. #30
    Moderator urbanfarmer's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponic Armageddon!

    Well, he's a sharp guy! What do you expect?

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