Strawberry Towers

Here's a couple of pictures of phase 2 of my greenhouse aquaponics system. I'll give credit to Synaptoman for his strawberry tower design....and I've made a few tweaks to the design.

Here's the entire system. I don't have a open pit for the drain, so there are caps on the bottom of each tower with a 3/4" tapped fitting thats drain to the discharge pipe. I was afraid to have each tower hang since this greenhouse isn't really designed to hang that much weight in it. So I took a piece of 3" PVC pipe and made little stands to carry the weight, then strapped each tower to the cross brace to keep them balanced. Each tower has it's own ball valve to regulate the supply water flow.



Last week I chiseled out a few strawberry plants out of the frozen ground and planted them. They're already sending out new growth...early berries this year!!! This setup will hold a total of 48 plants which takes up about 5 square feet.



I had some problems with the water escaping at some of the 'pockets'. The surface tension was just enough where the water would flip off the curve. I took some scrap pipe and cemented a lip to each opening. If this drained into an open pit, it wouldn't have mattered, but I wanted to keep my floor somewhat dry.



This is how the drain from each tower is connected to the discharge pipe. I just cut a bunch of holes in each stand and ran a 1" pipe through it. Also, you can see part of an oval piece on the floor. This goes into the bottom 'pocket' to help prevent the stone from getting stuck in the drain fitting.



After a few weeks, there are now new leaves and they are starting to blossom!



I'm really hoping this setup will work. Strawberries are a lot of work in a regular garden. Plus, just when the berries are ripe, the chipmunks steal them. I'll keep you posted on the progress....

I'll admit it...I love automation. So it takes a day to build something where it normally would take 10 seconds to manually feed the fish....it's well worth it! My latest creation is a fish feeder.

I took a small gear motor and slightly modified an old auger bit that was laying around. Then welded a couple of pieces of black pipe together and stuck a cam and switch on the end. A 7-up or mountain dew bottle makes a great feed holder. I probably could have made it independent and put it on it's own timer, but I have it running off of my computerized controller that runs the rest of the system. The only think I paid for was the gear motor, which was around $12....plus I lost my $0.05 deposit for ripping the label off the bottle. It works great! NOTHING gets stuck in there and it could easily take off a finger if you stuck in in the feed tube. After all, the bit is made of hardened steel and is designed to drill through wood!






Here it is all up and running. Right now my goldies are small and are still on flakes...and there's some pellets mixed in there.

Building an Aquaponics/hydroponics system

I finally got a chance to post some info about my system. I was given a bunch of 8" ABS piping. At first I was going to just split them in half, but I didn't think I would have enough root depth. Here's what I did:

First of all, I bought some 1/4" and 3/4" taps. I use them throughout the project and they pay for themselves by not needing to buy bulkhead fittings! They work great in ABS or PVC!

I cut each pipe into 5' sections, and then cut out 2 slots in the top about 4" wide for the plants. I then drilled and tapped a 3/4" fitting in the bottom for filling/draining. Once I put in the barbed fitting, I cut off the top on the inside to "maximize" the drainage. Plus, if there is any debris, it will get sucked out though this area.



In the background, you can see I cemeted and a ring around the inside of the pipe. This will act as a shelf to help support the end cap that I welded into place. This is the first time I've done plastic welding....LOVE IT!



I had a bunch of 1/2" black pipe so I welded a rack together and also dug a hole in the floor of my greenhouse for a sump. It was heartbreaking to dig out the floor in my nice little greenhouse. I'm sure I'll get over it once I see all these yummy veggies The sump pumps the water back into the 650 gallon tank.



I split a piece of 2" pipe and half and laid it in the bottom of each tray. This keeps the rocks out of the drain pipe....but I'm still concerned about the roots getting in there and I don't have a good way to clean them out...



I wanted to have an external bell siphon. I don't have a lot space of play with the water/gravel height in these trays, so by having the external siphon, I can fine-tune the height of the entire siphon. I'm really glad I did this now....It's has been working perfectly and I can make really fine adjustments to it without having to dismantle it.

Here area all the parts to it. Just a couple of odd things about it: A) I tapped two 3/4" fittings in the bottom-side. At first I tried to use just one fitting, but the 1/2" stand-pipe can suck the water out faster than a single tray can drain into the siphon chamber. B) I have a homemade bulkhead fitting in the bottom...I didn't have an o-rink or rubber laying around for the seal, but a dab of plummer's putty worked really well! C) The ball valve is for the water supply and the little tube is used to direct the water down into the chamber....I had a little spray problem and it would shoot out the top of the chamber! As a bonus, since I just sort of stuck the tube on the threads, while it's filling, it sucks air in through it and it act like a little bubbler.



Here it is all assembled. Just by dumb luck, I was able to sneak the supply tube under the vacuum break tube. It holds it all together nicely and helps to keep the bell from moving around.



Here it is with It's lid on and the 2 fill lines in the bottom-side.



Here's a couple of shots of the entire setup in operation!

From Aquaponics

Last week I planted lettuce, broccoli, peas, radish, beets, peppers, carrots and green beans. The peppers I planted indoors about a month ago. Everything else has sprouted. It will be interesting to see what the carrots, radish, and beets do in this sharp gravel.



The ground is still frozen outside (you can see the snow in the background). Even though this setup much smaller than my outdoor garden, I usually don't get to start planting until the first weekend in May! A 2 month head start rocks! The mass of the floor and tank can keep the night temps in the greenhouse about 12 degrees F warmer at night...just enough to keep everything safe!

I hope you all enjoy my setup...I have more expansions I'm working on......

New doors on the greenhouse

"That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!"
After wrestling with the terrible sliding doors for the last year, I've and enough! The other day there was enough ice buildup in the track where it just forced the entire door off...Trying to put it back on in the freezing temps, I managed to pop off the little WHITE wheels into the WHITE snow. Needless to say, that was the end of the door.

I built a frame around the opening with treated 2x3's and built a nice new set or doors....on hinges!!! I was able to salvage the existing glazing and cut each panel down just a little (since my new doors are slightly smaller than the old ones because of the door jamb. The existing door opening was slightly skewed so I loosened all the bolts on that wall and gave the structure a little push with my tractor bucket. Squared it right up! ;-) round the entire perimeter of the doors, I installed foam weather stripping and it sealed it up quite nicely.

This is what harbor freight should have done with their original design!

Vents 2.0

I am disappointed with the automatic vent openers. The few that did work would only open a few inches. I was worried about cooking my plants, or even worse, the kids' remaining fish! So I set off to go build a better mouse-trap.

I'll have to warn you, I run an IT department, so I know how to program and tinker with electronics....

I wanted to completely automate the greenhouse so I didn't have to keep an eye on it. At my disposal, I had an old laptop from work. I then purchased a couple of USB temperature cards and a relay card (dlpdesign.com). Next I found some used windshield wiper motors (surpluscenter.com) and started tinkering.

I wrote a controller program that was able to monitor the temperature of the greenhouse. Based on the temps, the vents are able to open & close on their own. It's easier to watch how they work, then to explain it, so here's a link to YouTube: Click for Video

Here are a couple of closeup pics of the vent opener:




The controller is also able to plot a history of temperatures. Here's a 24 hour snapshot.

Red=outside temp
Green=inside temp
Blue=tank water temp
Black Up Arrow=vent opening (one set opens at 73, the other at 75)
Black Down Arrow=vent closing (one set closes at 72, the other at 74)
Yellow=amount of sunlight entering

So far, I've very happy with the results. I'm thinking about using the same controller to control a hydroponics system next year. Stay tuned for future posts!

Thanks.
<<Additions

Additions

Since I want to use the greenhouse over the winter, I needed a way to retain heat. First I installed 1.5" foil-backed foam insulation on the north wall. I'll probably make some removable panels for the northern facing roof for the winter.

I also built a 650 gallon water storage tank. It has a steel and wooden frame, with a pond liner in it. I could have put in tanks, but I can get more storage per square foot. Plus I turned it into a small water garden and put a couple of fish in there.

Here are Bob and George in their new home. They are about 9" long. Their old home was a 10 gallon tank! Sadly, George went to fishy heaven a few months later.

I put in a bench on the south side which is built out of some scrap plywood. I also made some planters out of some cedar and put casters on the bottom. It allows me to roll them under the benches to get them out of the way.

Here are some peppers, broccoli, and
cantaloupe.

<<Structural | Vents 2.0 >>

Structural Modifications

The sliding doors are very sensitive and can rack easily. After a month of wrestling with them, I installed simple aluminum cross braises on each door. I drilled a hole through each horizontal brace in the door and used a piercing screw to hold the diagonal brace to each section. This made a HUGE difference and both doors now glide open.

I really wish that Harbor Freight just made a regular door instead of the sliders...I'm sure it's all about saving a couple of bucks.

The most important addition I made was adding some extra bracing. During windy days, I could see the end wall bowing in and out...especially the entrance wall since the cross bracing is really poor. I bought some standard 10' x 1/2" conduit. I cut them in half and pounded down each end to make them flat and drilled a hole in them. I bent the flat piece at about a 45 degree angle for the wall side and then sort of held it in place to figure out the angle of the rafter side. I was able to use 2 pieces total for the 4 "corners"

I was also very concerned about the snow load during the winter. If there is a heavy weight on the roof, the walls will bow out quite a bit. (I tested this by hanging off the top rafter support beam!) I built a tie-rod by taking another piece of conduit and cut it to around 7'. (I measured the distance between the bolts of the angle braces to determine the distance of the holes in the tie rod.) I pounded down the ends and bent them to about 30 degrees. I also pounded down a spot in the center of the rod and drilled a hole in it. Just by luck, the remaining piece of conduit was just long enough to attach the peak of the roof to the tie rod. This simple structural change added a lot of additional stability and made the roof extremely rigid. The tie rods are tall enough where I can easily walk under them, and also hang a bunch of plants from them. The trick is to get the angles of the rods correct!

Another note. Some conduit can be brittle. I heated the ends with a MAPP gas torch so it was about red hot and pounded it down with a lump hammer on my vice. Also the coating on the conduit can be toxic, so do it outside.

<<Glazing | Additions>>