Aquaponics - Beasties

I found some alien beasties in my new grow bed.

It's not often that you get to mark out three square metres or so of clean wet stuff on a high contrast background, and see what moves in overnight. In the morning, there were some bug deaths, some bugs just getting on with their lives, and my first bug births. I have no idea what they are, but they only took 12 hours to move into my new grow bed. 

Very very small beasties

I put a few hundred litres of water into the grow bed to test my silicone, and to weigh it down.

I'm hoping the truck that delivers my gravel will be able to dump it directly into the grow bed saving me a stack of time. It wont be able to, but it keeps me from thinking about having to shovel gravel.

It's no wonder people buy bulldozers.

Aquaponics - Another base for my new grow bed

I think I have finally settled on a base for my grow bed.

And I cut the hole for the puddle flange to the correct size.

I also cleaned it up so I can silicone it. Yes, in my world, that qualifies as clean.

It was necessary to cut away a bit of the wooden pallet underneath as well. This should now allow a clear path for drainage pipes to the sump.







I ended up settling on three wooden forklift pallets, and some bricks to add a bit of extra width. My main concern was to make it strong enough to take the weight of all the gravel, and all that water.

Additionally I needed to make it sturdy enough that if someone taps it with a car or something, it might still be standing the next day. I think my design provides this.

I hope my design provides this.