stucco's system Expansion

**samtheman** · 11-15-2011, 06:41 AM

Wow Stucco, those pictures are incredible awesome.....You are the man!!!!!

**stucco** · 11-15-2011, 03:52 PM

Thanks sam! How are things growin at your place?

**samtheman** · 11-15-2011, 04:31 PM

Right now I am harvesting the last batch of tomatoes. I stil have eggplants with fruits, basil,strawberries, okra, cucumbers. I struggled alot with the peppers this year due to whiteflies and insects. Hopefuly next year the peppers will do better... The tilapia fingerlings I got from you last year grew up to dinner size and we cooked around 12 of them on a family reunion.

**stucco** · 11-15-2011, 06:08 PM

[youtube:1m6opil4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KansEQwzakE[/youtube:1m6opil4]

**foodchain** · 11-16-2011, 05:57 AM

Whatever came of the pollination issues? We keep a honeybee hive on our property to help with this....but I have kept bees since I was a kid.
With the ferrocement trough you did, the 16 x 16...how did that finally work out?
I think a design/construction like that may be more effecient than what I am doing now. I am unsure though on how to keep the sides of wire mesh from sagging between the rebar pieces. I probably just need to add more wire to stiffen up. Afraid that once I skin it with the mix that the waves will be carried over. Ideas?

**stucco** · 11-16-2011, 10:52 AM

Use rebar for stakes and hog tie or tie wire cattle panel to it for the base structure. Then tie wire lath to both sides. This will make a hollow armature that has to be filled and that is where the strength comes from.
We were making a printed manual but decided that it was cheaper to just do it in YouTube clips so after we get past this tour we are doing and it cools off a bit I will get on it

**foodchain** · 11-16-2011, 11:52 AM

On your troughs, and in the first pics in this thread your sidewalls go straight down. Would a tapered side, at say 30-40 degrees or so have been better? This would give maximum surface area, but shrinking down the amount of media needed as well as reducing materials and needed footprint? Just thinking out loud. IF the pond is in the ground, and the troughs are elevated, a simple pump would lift the water, but it doesn't do anything for cleaning the solids that settle off the bottom of the pond. Even a swirl filter won't clean the bottom, though it would remove some chunks suspended in the water column. Does no good to put bottom drain in that tank/pond as the opening would be below ground level...water doesn't go up hill. Does the solids in the bottom matter, if there's enough DO? What am I missing here?

**stucco** · 11-17-2011, 04:51 AM

We’ve been toying with the idea of building a tower system for the last year or so. I made an arbor to hang the towers. We can’t afford the cool zipgrow towers at the moment so I went with the web for deb pvc style for now. Still a work in progress….

**foodchain** · 11-17-2011, 06:24 AM

Wire feed welding with the boy is fun. However, if you ever switch to stick I feel I should warn you....the UV off of that will cook your skin like a fire does a marshmellow. I built a BBQ from unused oilfield pipe once after coming in from an offshore rig....I wasn't thinking, and just wore my helmet, wife beater T, and cut off's. I did it all in stick... I finished the grill....next day my skin peeled off like an orange. Just an error on caution. With wire feed though you aren't producing quite the same stuff. Fun with the kids....I use my oldest as a clamp on a lot of my projects, my wife is horrified...I just tell her..."don't sweat it, it grows back." She is not amused.

**foodchain** · 11-17-2011, 06:53 AM

What is the trellis made from? I am making a similar one from wood. But your's doesn' look like it....to far a span between posts to be wood. Possibly square channel?