Thinking - Beam me up Scotty

Dear The-President,

I'm reasonably sure that the pressure difference between the Enterprise and (statistically speaking), pretty much every planet's surface, would result in a lot of sinus pain and some scenes involving explosive snot.

I feel these scenes were conspicuously absent in the filming of the Star Trek franchise during beaming exercises.

I further feel that in the interest of reality, this should be easily rectified.

The absence of snot is the absence of reality...

Boomshanka.




120 Things in 20 years - It's possible that I have a cold.

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Aquaponics - New growbed

I have a shiny new allotment of auqaponics real estate!

Yay me!

With a huge amount of help from Mrs. 120 Things, we added two submerged sections of 90mm PVC as inlet and outlet drainage media screens.

We also cut holes in the top of one end of the BYAP grow bend to allow water in from the fishtank, and the bottom of the other end to allow a standpipe to be fitted.

Then we fitted the standpipe. Basically a short length of pipe that sets the depth the water will sit at, by draining the growbed from the top of the pipe, out through a hole in the growbed.

Or in normalspeak, a plug with a tube stuck in it.

The result of a lot of picking through the media (clay balls) to remove all the rubbish that comes with buying second hand media, was this very nice looking growbed. (the growbed was second hand as well)

Working with a purpose built growbed with purpose built media is soooo much nicer than working with home made stuff. I'm all for tinkering and DIY, but if you just want a garden, this pre-made stuff is great. I have no connection with Backyard Aquaponics other than existing on their forum* (as BullwinkleII), but having bought one of their growbeds (second hand), I feel very comfortable recommending them.

Getting there.


* and winning my pump and some other stuff in one of their photo competitions.

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Aquaponics - Rain rain it's ok

I was planing a bit of a build post on setting up my new improved aquaponics system, but the heat wave we have been having of up to 44 C (111 F) was interrupted this weekend by two days of rain that sunk our fringe festival.

But I like rain.

For one thing it's nice that 44 C, but it also lets my put off doing things that I really should.

44 C days also let me put stuff off, but they are less pleasant to sit in.

Rain is much better.

So my new system looks like this...

I'm in the process of siphoning it out, but it collected enough water to fill it to the 3/4 mark.

But I think I've finalised a plan for my new system.

I've never been a big fan of removing solids from an auqaponics system because I really like the way it forms an integrated system, where the fish waste feeds the plants, but I thought I'd have a go at it because years ago someone thought it was a good idea.

The only real problem I have with removing solids is that it seems like a waste, but I figure if I can use the solids in the system, it will still fit within my comfort zone.

So the plan is...

• Make a swirl filter to collect solids
• Build a bell siphon into the swirl filter with an adjustable (height) stand pipe
• Set an outlet on the swirl filter such that it can dump water from the surface at the same rate that water is entering from the fishtank. This way the siphone will never trigger under normal operation.
• Make a stock tank float valve so that it adds water from the tap if it gets below a certain level 
• Make a Shishi-odoshi, which is a thing you might find in a Japanese garden that water trickles into, and occasionally goes "Doonk". It's basically a length of bamboo that is mounted at 45 degrees on a pivot point just a bit lower than it's half way mark. Water enters the pipe from the top, and when it gets full, the weight at the top causes it to pivot and dump it's water. The nature of the universe being what it is means the device dumps all it's water, because once it's commited to the dump, the weight of all the water shifts to the (now) bottom end. It also hits the ground and makes the "Doonk" sound that is apparently useful to scare deer away from your garden. Also apparently, Shishi-odoshi (鹿威) means "scare the deer" in Japanese. I dont know why you would want to do that. 
• Make an automatic water topup system for my sump tank so that when the water gets low due to evaporation, it will add a bit. There is such a thing as a stock tank valve that makes sure your cows always have a full trough no matter how thirsty they get. I'll use one of those. They have a float that regulates when water can flow. I'll use that in the sump, set so it triggers at my minimum low tide mark, then rather than dump that water into the sump, I'll dump it into the Shishi-odoshi. When this happens the water will continue to flow from the tap until the sump is filled again, so the Shishi-odoshi will fill reasonably quickly, then dump suddenly. 
• Build a cup of PVC with a half inch hole in it so that it surrounds the standpipe from about halfway up and is higher than the standpipe by a few inches. 
• Drill a half inch hole into the standpipe at the bottom, of a size that would mean the water being sucked into the standpipe would be roughly equalled be the water entering the cup. ie it wouldn't just instantly drain and halt the siphon once triggered. 
• Direct this dump from the Shishi-odoshi into the cup surrounding the siphon, and it will instantly trigger the siphon. 
• The swirl filter will collect the solids at the bottom in the centre, so only a small amount of water needs to be dumped to empty the solids from the system. Perhaps only a litre or two. 
• The dump of solids from the contraption (and this is by far my favourite bit) will drop directly into my soon to be newly constructed worm farm. My fish go crazy for worms. 

The beauty of the system is that the hotter it is, the more active my silver perch are. They eat way more in summer than winter. The result will be in winter when the fish and worms are less active, the worm farm wont need or get much water, and the system wont need as much topup water. 

The result is that it should regulate itself perfectly. 

in summer...

• worms are more active and eat more
• the fish are more active and produce more waste
• The worm farm needs more water (or at least can handle the extra litre or two every day) (mine will be a fairly large worm farm. I'm thinking of using a blue barrel)
• the system needs more topup water to replace evaporation so the Shishi-odoshi will trigger more often, and so supply more water and solids to the more active worms.

The worms eat my kitchen scraps, and fish poop.

The fish eat the worms, some duckweed growing on the sump, the scraps from the system (cuttings, root balls etc) and some store bought feed.

The plants eat the fish solids.

I eat the plants and the fish.

Everyone is happy.

Except the plants and the fish, the duckweed, and the worms. 

120 Things in 20 years Where I am everyone.

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Aquaponics - Automatic solids removal

So this...

out of the blue

A while ago... What I think is a year in Bullwinklle time... I decided I'd not use the invention engine for a year to see if it made any difference to the quality of the stuff I create. I have no real idea if it it has, but I'm now officially giving up on the experiment.

It feels a little like I've had one hemisphere tied behind my back.

So now I've decided to set two tasks allowing full access to the invention engine process.

1. Get sticking rich.
2. Contribute something to my garden that might be useful to someone else.

The two are in no way connected, and because I have no idea how to get sticking rich, I thought I'd start with the aquaponics system, and leave the wealth part for another day.

I suspect leaving getting sticking rich for another day might be a theme in my life.

anyway ...

I've been playing around with the idea of making a farm to grow escargo for many years. I figured this might by the thing I could put some research into and come up with an idea or two. My ideas put to the engine have all been based around using a bell siphon to flush a grow bed of snail solids by drowning the entire farm...say... once a day, by completely submerging the grazing feed (lettuce etc) in 30cm deep of water to wash away the snail's solid waste.

The plan looked something like this...

Picture a 30cm deep BYAP grow bed with 15cm of media, and a 1cm wire mesh stretched across the top. The escargo would live in a cage on top of this grow bed. Planted in the growbed would be green leafy plants that snails liked, and that could survive being eaten from the top once they reached a height of 15cm. Lettuce etc. The plants would grow to 15cm height, then they would be grazed by the snails that would be housed in a cage that sat on top of the lettuce cage.The lettuce would continue to grow, and via some magic that I would figure out with the invention engine, the solids would be rinsed every so often with the rising tide of an auto siphon (or something)

Got it?

It doesn't matter, because that's not what I'm going to do.

It turns out that if you read through own threads on forums, you find you made some other promise to make an aquaponics system that removes solids automatically.

Oh well.

Unfortunately for me I think I might have a go at this as a project.

I would like to state at this stage that I think this is an entirely pointless thing to do. I really like the way aquaponics works as an almost closed loop (if you invite your fish food manufacturer into your loop).

The balance is what makes it so appealing.

But that is also what makes it appealing as a task to set the invention engine.

Sorry universe.

So that's it...

How do I make an aquaponics system that removes solids?

Eughhh! (with shaking head)


Ok...


How do I make an aquaponics system, that I don't hate, that removes solids?


I already have some stuff that might be relevant from when I made a swirl filter (somebody eles's invention), but made it with a built in autosiphon. The problem with that is it triggers all the time and dumps a lot of water with the solids.

Now that I think of it, I might have already come up with some other useful stuff as well.

Perhaps this test of the invention engine will just prove that I should have paid attention the first time around.

And now I remember the deer scarer.

Perhaps I've already collected all the bits I need.




120ThingsIn20Years thinks this might be a bad way to come out of semi-retirement (Eughhh!)

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Aquaponics - The no holes fishtank window

I've been thinking about adding a viewing window to my fishtank because I'm part way through moving and expanding my little system, and now would be a good time.

The new system is going to be a simple CHIFT PIST* with fewer points to go wrong compared to my current system.

The problem with adding a window is that it's another point that could fail. The side of the IBC fishtank is flexible, and the glass window is rigid, and that never ends well.

So I thought I'd run it through the invention engine and see if there was a safer way.

It came up with something it likes to call the "No Holes Fishtank Window".

Which is nice.



So, it turns out you could probably force an aquarium partially under water from the surface to make an interesting inside-out aquarium.

It's a little reminiscent of Wonco's house, "Outside of the asylum".

A better viewing angle would be made from a wedge shaped aquarium made from two squares of glass, and two triangles for sides. One square sits flat against the side of the fish tank (the side you would be leaning against when viewing), and the other sits at an angle of 45 degrees, so that it meets the other square 40cm underwater.

The entire device is mounted on a bracket that keeps it underwater. The bracket is an inverted U shaped bar of stainless steel (stainless steel, so the fishies don't get all dead). One bit of the U is siliconed onto the side of the window, the other end has a locknut to attach it to the frame of your IBC.

It could be easily removed to clean, or to simply add to land fill.

It will probably work, and might look a bit like this...

I might even make one for my boat.

Surprise!

120 Things in 20 years is still alive!



*Constant height in fish tank, pump in sump tank

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Epic adventurer - Solar boat progress

I made some progress today buy building the frame to hold the solar panel on my little boat.

Not a lot of progress, but a bit.

I was prompted by Dave, a solar panel exporter from China to make some progress, so here is the result.

I made it all out of 25mm aluminium pipe, and plastic plumbing fittings. It should work well enough once I tie or wire it down. I might add some wire tension as well to make sure it all stays where it should.

The best part of my new adult construction kit is that I'm able to adjust any of it on the go with nothing more than my hands and some luck.

At some point I plan on building a solar tracker so my panel always points to the sun regardless of where my little boat is pointing.

As a result, I?'ll need the design to be flexible enough to allow me to add electronics and some kind of actuators to raise and lower different ends, and sides of the panel.

The basic plan will see me sit at the end with the chair on the right, looking under the solar panel when I'm sitting, and looking over the top of the panel when standing. This height gives an unrestricted view when sitting or standing.

When sitting, I wont cast a shadow on the panels even when the sun is setting directly behind me.

The panel will sit on top of the two bars and form the final bit of structure.

That should work.

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Thinking - TV police chases

It's bound to happen sooner or later that a villain being pursued on foot will slowly gain distance on the police officer in pursuit and eventually, gradually, escape.

I think it's time Hollywood.

I think it's time.

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