Click bait! You probably thought I was talking about ‘the system’ that is crushing us all, but it’s something less existential.
In fact, it was one of our big IBC ‘ponics beds.
There were two, half IBC beds, not there’s only one. The IBC was gifted to us and, until recently I hadn’t known that some brands weren’t UV stabilized. Over the last year, the one most exposed to the sun has cracked a couple of times and last weak, a final, inoperable crack appeared.
I removed the media and investigated but realised that it was a lost cause. Many small cracks were appearing so it would be a long term struggle. Thinking about how to avoid the work of getting a new one, I spoke to Jelina and it turned out she was pleased to reclaim the space for her art studio. Win win !
The frame for both beds had been built to support and balance both and now there is only one, it was, like me, a little unbalanced. So I got to bracing it with the goal of rebuilding it to hold just one tub. Without emptying the tub.
Like most home handymen, I thought I’d done an amazing job! Then on a final inspection, I saw a leg right at the back that I couldn’t remember. It was under the tub and inaccessible because of the fence behind it. The rest if my worked seemed sturdy enough, so I thought ‘bugger it, I donn’t need it’ and hit it with a bit of 50×50.
Of you’ve read this far, you’re probably guessing what happened next. Yep, the whole thing pitched forward throwing media and water everywhere
I was lucky I was crouching to the side and that I’d shifted the pump likewise. The black tub underneath didn’t fare so well. Squish! I was in such a tizzy about it all that I forgot to take any pics of the mess but trust me, it was exactly that.
I managed to reuse some of the wood and used some scrap pieces laying around to make up the rest. The only thing I needed to buy was some more paint – my old stuff had dried to a crust. I received a shock at the price but that’s life and I got the cheapest possible ($60 for two litres). Fortunately we had several days over 45 degrees, so that helped the drying time a lot.
The media was the next issue, two tubs full had to be used and I had thought about making the single new bed a constant height bed with the media level below where it was. If you’ve been following our adventures, especially of the ‘ponics kind, you’ll know that the media in this bed had been padded out with upturned, empty, ice cream containers. I’d decided to go without the padding and run it with a lower height of media. The upshot was maybe 1/3 cubic metre of clay balls and scoria mix had to find a home.
Filling the new tub to the desired level, I was left with a remaining pile that I still don’t know what to do with. It’s too valuable to throw out or even just distribute it around the garden. I’ll give it a think…
The other benefit was that the pump developed a leak in the swivel housing of the outlet bit. It is a submersible pond pump and with a swivel ‘head’ to allow the jet of water to go where directed. This had split. Digging in my boxes, I found an interesting looking threaded right angle fittig that, with a little adaptation, fitted nicely and now the water flow wasn’t restricted…we have a lot more pressure and flow rate – so much that I had to fit a tap to the end of the pipe! It is enough to run the tub with a Bell siphon – every wannabe aquaponics guru’s ultimate goal.
Bell Siphons allow the whole media bed periodically, automatically quickly drain, allowing more oxygen to get to plant roots and also allowing worms to survive and clean up debris.
Within minutes, I had a siphon working, though the water level at which it tripped was a bit too high. I cut the stand pipe down progressively and got the height right but then the siphon wouldn’t trip. Hmmm…time to adjust the flow rate …It’s just on the verge of kicking in but not quite (this is a fascinating part of the process, something I enjoy torturing myself with over several days).
Next up was some new bird netting. This bed is for leafy greens, meaning that they don’t need pollination. That equals using a finer mesh net without making it too fine for the predatory wasps that make our ‘ponics their home. 5mm is perfect and a suitable size was conveniently on sale at Mitre 10. The last part to work on is some shade cloth. With the extreme temperatures, we need something and the grape vines I planted to shade this area aren’t grown enough yet. As a matter of fact, they got scorched themselves. More thinking…
I won’t be planting out until next week. Temps are w-a-aa-a-y-y-y-y too high and we have a nasty dry wind. Who’d put seedlings through that?
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