The farm

[David Hart]

 Well, it's time to get out of the 'backyard' and move to 'The Farm'. We found a defunct green house just out side of town. It hasn't been used since the hirricanes blew through central FL ( '03 ? )  It's 70 ft x 165 feet...

 It will be a trough system. It will have swirl filters for solids seperation and 3 - 4 ft x 8 ft media beds as part of the filtering system.

 

As you can see, we have a lot of clean up to do. We are starting in one 1/4 of the green house. Once we have the fish tanks (IBC's) , the filters and the first of the rafts started ( so we can start the water cycling) ...we will build more troughs in the second 1/4 and tie them into the others.

 

Here, is the start of the media beds....lots of blocks to hold them up, more then enough. I'm more concerned with them settling.

 

The 2x4's are PT, so is the 3/4 ply. The sides will be made from corral boards. The ply and corral boards are being coated with the white rubber mobile home roof coating, for a little extra protection. The beds will be lined with20 mm dura-skrim.

We will be covering the arch's with 50% alumi-net. The sides and ends will be screen.

Once the 1st half is done, we should have about 540 ft of troughs (4 feet wide) plus the 24 feet of media beds (also 4 feet wide)

 

I'll post more, as we get stuff built and installed.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[David Hart]

Your right TCL. The 1st time I tried it in my backyard system,   I tried 'used' soaker hose. It produced finer bubbles, which one would think, would take more pressure.  At the farm, we bought a new hose. The bubbles are bigger, thinking along the same lines...it may be taking less pressure.

I've had to pull them out at home, and give them a cleaning. Which I usually just use a semi-stiif brush with clean water and scrub them.

At $10 for 50 feet, I'll be able to have 'extars' on hand.

[Rob Nash]

Is that a "utube"? Or concentrator?

[David Hart]

Hi Rob, I'm not sure what it should be called...?

The idea was 'adapted',  from a discussion about 'air-lifts'. Some one, raising tilapia (aquaculture style) had raceways, where the water flowed by use of 'air lifts'.  They had a (u-tube) pipe in the ground 50 feet deep. They injected O2 to the bottom and when the water came out, it was 'saturated' with O2. They mentioned the pressure of the 'depth' helped to force the O2 into the water.

 

My pipe, is only 5 feet in the ground, and about the same above ground. Whether the pressure from the pump, or the few feet of depth, of my pipe adds any O2....is probably minimal. 

The water in Fl can get pretty warm in the summer. I was just trying to help add air, anyway I could. From where the pumps are, to the tanks ...is only about 4 feet. My goal,  was to increase the 'contact time' of the bubbles in the water.

[Rob Nash]

 i see ...its like a dual purpose airlift. i like it.  

 

[David Hart]

Thanks Rob..

The water flows, whether the air is 'on' or not.....I didn't mean to mis-lead you on the 'airlift' part. I just got the idea about a pipe in the ground, from reading about an air lift