Cutting holes in plastic & connecting flexible tubing to PVC pipes

[Ricky Flickenger]

Good morning everyone!

I'm slowly collecting all the parts for my 55 gallon system and will want to start building in the near future so I can have the tank cycled and maturing by the time I want to plant veggies in the spring.

As  begin drawing...and re drawing, LOL...my plans for this system I'm realizing there are some things I don't know how to do and thought I could get some advice from the experts...you guys!  First, what is the best way to cut holes in plastic and attach fittings for pipes/hoses?  And what kind of fitting do you use in the hole to attach the tubes/piping to? I've heard of something called a uniseal - do they work well?

Second, are there fittings to attach flexible tubing to the same diameter rigid piping?

Thanks everyone, I appreciate any input :)

[TCLynx]

Here is a blog post about just that topic
Drilling Holes in Plastic Containers

Keep in mind that bulkhead fittings need to fit into a relatively flat section of tank wall and are not so good at dealing with curves. Uniseals are better at it but only to a point, they are fine in blue barrels but when putting a uniseal into the side of a pipe to hook a smaller pipe to it, you have to be a bit more careful about the size difference since the curve of the pipe can make the hole "bigger". A small uniseal hooking into a 3" pipe is fine but I've cut it close by doing things like a 1/2" into a 1 1/2" pipe and sometimes they leak or a 1 1/2" uniseal into a 3" pipe is also cutting it close and any pressure or irregularity in the hole cut can cause failure.

I like uniseals for most things, especially plumbing through blue barrels. Reduces the number of fittings needed and therefor reduces costs.

Yes there are fittings that can hook PVC to flexible tubing. The barb side of the fittings hooks to the tubing and the other side can be a slip fitting that you glue onto PVC or you can look into the dark gray schedule 80 fittings (often near the irrigation stuff at Lowes or over in the Isle with the black drinking water pipe) There are gray barb fittings that can connect different sizes of pipe together or there are ones with threads to say go from 1" threaded fitting of either gender to the barb fitting. Or one might go from 1/2" threaded to a 3/4" barb fitting. There are all sorts of adapters in there so bring an image in your head or on paper of what you need to do so you can sift through the parts to make it happen or get help.

Soon you will know the way around the plumbing departments of your local big box stores at least as well as the people who work there :)

[Ricky Flickenger]

Thanks for the advice and the link! I don't think I'll be cutting any holes in the side of a pipe, I was thinking more about end to end connections for connecting flexible to rigid.

The holes I want to cut will be in the side of a square container (so they will be flat) and I need to get tubing in the holes to drain back down to the tank. Besides the cutting, that's where I was kind of lost as well and wasn't sure if that was a good application for a uniseal, or if I should cut the hole and seal the tube in with silicone, or if there is a fitting that could go in the hole, be sealed into place, and the tube attaches to that. I'd like for the last option to be viable so I can replace/remove the tubing if need be for maintenance.


TCLynx said:

Here is a blog post about just that topic
Drilling Holes in Plastic Containers

Keep in mind that bulkhead fittings need to fit into a relatively flat section of tank wall and are not so good at dealing with curves. Uniseals are better at it but only to a point, they are fine in blue barrels but when putting a uniseal into the side of a pipe to hook a smaller pipe to it, you have to be a bit more careful about the size difference since the curve of the pipe can make the hole "bigger". A small uniseal hooking into a 3" pipe is fine but I've cut it close by doing things like a 1/2" into a 1 1/2" pipe and sometimes they leak or a 1 1/2" uniseal into a 3" pipe is also cutting it close and any pressure or irregularity in the hole cut can cause failure.

I like uniseals for most things, especially plumbing through blue barrels. Reduces the number of fittings needed and therefor reduces costs.

Yes there are fittings that can hook PVC to flexible tubing. The barb side of the fittings hooks to the tubing and the other side can be a slip fitting that you glue onto PVC or you can look into the dark gray schedule 80 fittings (often near the irrigation stuff at Lowes or over in the Isle with the black drinking water pipe) There are gray barb fittings that can connect different sizes of pipe together or there are ones with threads to say go from 1" threaded fitting of either gender to the barb fitting. Or one might go from 1/2" threaded to a 3/4" barb fitting. There are all sorts of adapters in there so bring an image in your head or on paper of what you need to do so you can sift through the parts to make it happen or get help.

Soon you will know the way around the plumbing departments of your local big box stores at least as well as the people who work there

[TCLynx]

Have you read the barrel ponics manual? instead of using bulkhead fittings, there are images and explanation about parts needed to do kinda inexpensive DIY bulkheads using parts you can get at lowes.

Here, there is a link half way down the page for the barrel ponics manual Link is under the Barrel Ponics system picture

[Ricky Flickenger]

just downloaded and will start reading, much appreciated :)

TCLynx said:

Have you read the barrel ponics manual? instead of using bulkhead fittings, there are images and explanation about parts needed to do kinda inexpensive DIY bulkheads using parts you can get at lowes.

Here, there is a link half way down the page for the barrel ponics manual Link is under the Barrel Ponics system picture

[Ricky Flickenger]

Just read the part about cutting holes and installing the fittings. Thank you for leading me in the right direction, and kudos on the manual, pics & easy instructions :)

TCLynx said:

Have you read the barrel ponics manual? instead of using bulkhead fittings, there are images and explanation about parts needed to do kinda inexpensive DIY bulkheads using parts you can get at lowes.

Here, there is a link half way down the page for the barrel ponics manual Link is under the Barrel Ponics system picture

[TCLynx]

I didn't write that manual, I give full credit to Travis Hughey. I highly recommend that manual to anyone starting out in AP even if they don't build exactly like the manual says, it does give a good start to finding ones way around the plumbing.

The only things I don't like about a basic barrel ponics system are 1- all the solids get sent up to the top bed over the flush tank first and two, I have never done well seeing fish in a barrel on it's side type fish tank so I highly recommend upgrading the fish tank to something easier to work with.


Ricky Flickenger said:

Just read the part about cutting holes and installing the fittings. Thank you for leading me in the right direction, and kudos on the manual, pics & easy instructions

[Ricky Flickenger]

Good of you to give credit where it's due - I was just skimming at first and assumed it was yours, LOL.

It's the part about the plumbing fixtures I appreciate (I'm a chef and have NEVER worked with piping). I'm good on getting a system working and what I want it to look like, but don't know much about plumbing outside of what is used in home fish tanks. I agree about the being able to see the fish, I like to observe to fish and system to se how it's doing. As I'm using a 55 gallon fish tank (I'm doing all this in my apt) I don't need to worry about that.

Anyway, thanks again, it looks like I have some reading and several hardware store trips to make :)

TCLynx said:

I didn't write that manual, I give full credit to Travis Hughey. I highly recommend that manual to anyone starting out in AP even if they don't build exactly like the manual says, it does give a good start to finding ones way around the plumbing.

The only things I don't like about a basic barrel ponics system are 1- all the solids get sent up to the top bed over the flush tank first and two, I have never done well seeing fish in a barrel on it's side type fish tank so I highly recommend upgrading the fish tank to something easier to work with.


Ricky Flickenger said:

Just read the part about cutting holes and installing the fittings. Thank you for leading me in the right direction, and kudos on the manual, pics & easy instructions

[TCLynx]

for an indoor system. I might advise the use of more fish safe silicone. For many of my outdoor systems, it didn't matter much if there was an occasional drip or tiny leak but an indoor system sealing the plumbing is more important. Where you might want to keep things flexible to allow for taking it apart and upgrading or moving, some fish safe silicone around the ends of pipe where you push them into the fittings can go a long way. If there is worry that something might get knocked out, adding a stainless steel screw with some extra silicone to hole it securely can still allow for taking it apart in the future. Granted, none of this will really help under higher pressure (that requires proper pvc cement) but should be sufficient for an indoor system with small pumps.

:)

[Ricky Flickenger]

I'm always sure to use fish safe silicone, I've to work on tanks before and learned the difference. That's a great idea about a bit of silicone around where I push in tubing, never thought of that.

You're right, no high pressure here...just a pump pushing water out of the tank

TCLynx said:

for an indoor system. I might advise the use of more fish safe silicone. For many of my outdoor systems, it didn't matter much if there was an occasional drip or tiny leak but an indoor system sealing the plumbing is more important. Where you might want to keep things flexible to allow for taking it apart and upgrading or moving, some fish safe silicone around the ends of pipe where you push them into the fittings can go a long way. If there is worry that something might get knocked out, adding a stainless steel screw with some extra silicone to hole it securely can still allow for taking it apart in the future. Granted, none of this will really help under higher pressure (that requires proper pvc cement) but should be sufficient for an indoor system with small pumps.

:)

[JD Sawyer]

The pilot drill bit has a tendency to quickly pull the hole saw down onto the plastic no matter how cautious you are. I usually put the hole saw in reverse after punching the pilot hole especially with larger hole saws. This way the teeth don't bite so hard on initial impact and your wrists don't get torqued. Once the hole is started you can usually switch to forward but just take it slow.