More leaks, but it's workable

Well, asking Erin to handle the caulking on this version seemed to have worked for 3 days. We hooked it up on Friday night and it worked!


The Drains are draining and looking great!

Here are the pipes, leakless and working beautifully. Erin Caulked the tops of these in the 2x4 one day, then screwed in the tops the next day and caulked around the bottoms of those in the grow bed. Then she told me I wasn't allowed to touch or test them until Friday (3-4 days away) so they had time to completely dry. It worked for a bit because we had 3 days after filling, without tragedy or leaks.


Here's the grow bed filled with some rocks and water, looking all ready for planting. After 3 days, our peas had sprouted, which made the eventual leak all the more difficult.





Here's a wide shot of the full growbed and tank before I put the rocks in. The water is clear (though the bottom of the tank is carpeted in algae - that's a fight we're still fighting. Hopefully as the plants in the grow bed start to root and grow, they will suck up all the nutrients in the water and the alge will go away.) and beautiful.



Here's a pictyure of a leak - you can kind of see it against the white PVC. Two of the pipes leaked on the setup that Erin caulked - just out of the blue on Monday it started to leak and went onto the brick wall behind the tank and down the back of the tank. This was pretty worrisome because we were losing water and the water was going to places where we had electrical connections.

We sort of solved the issue by pulling off the supports from the side of the tank and removing the 2x4 shelves that the grow bed sat on. then we turned the grow bed 180 degrees so the pipes and holes were in the front and set the grow bed directly on the top of the light box. This looks better and gives more room for tall plants and a more even distribution of light. The problem is that the leak is still there. I need to switch out the pvc parts in the grow bed so that there's a more flush connection which should be more airtight. Someone on one of my fish forum websites also suggested that I use waterproofing thread tape instead of rubber o-rings, so I'll have to try that to see if I get a tighter connection.

For now, though, the leak is just putting the water in the front right corner of the tank and a little bit splashes out onto the recliner and floor next to the tank where we have a towel to catch it.

The other things that I learned in this process are:
1) Garlic does not grow aquaponically
2) garlic rots in water and gravel when the fish water can't cycle through the tank (we were trying to grow it in an old growbed version while we got the current version worked out)
3) rotton garlic will not come off of rocks easily - I've tried laundry soap and axe body wash, alternating soaking and rinsing. The rocks that were in the old grow bed still stink. I may have to try bleach, then a whole bunch of dechlorinator. I just really don't want to do that.