A Setback

Well, it was bound to happen eventually...I had a setback with my system design today. 

1. The paint on the underbed boxes flakes off if you so much as look at it wrong - despite using the bonding primer recommended by the guy at Lowes
2. When filled with water the sides of the underbed boxes bow out and are unstable.  I already suspected this would happen, which is why I was working on the PVC frame idea.  Which brings me to...
3. The PVC frames were a failure.  If I make them tight enough to hold the underbed box up, it causes the sides to bow in.  Once I begin to put water in it the weight causes the sides to collapse in and fall down out of the frame (and yes, I had a support under the bottom...but still no joy)
4. Even if the PVC frames worked, the boxes are really to long for the table and once I add the extra 3/4" on each side for the PVC the four boxes together are just too big for the table

So, I trashed the whole underbed box idea and went with the bins that were recommended (and I should have used in the first place. *sigh*

Fortunately, I was able to return all of the paint and associated accessories that I hadn't used yet to Lowes and get pretty much everything else I needed for only $3 more than the credit.  Go me.  All I need now is water and fish.

More tomorrow...

Plans...

In the Friendly Aquaponics D-I-Y guide they recommend sketching/drawing out your system plan.  They say it will help you better understand how to set everything up.  I wasn't going to do this at first, but yesterday I sat down and did it.  I have to say...I am SO glad that I did!  It really helped me understand how I needed to do the plumbing (and I realized I would have made some mistakes if I had skipped this step!).  Now if only I could wrap my brain around the water chemistry...that's going to be my next thing to concentrate on.

Today I'm going to measure my boxes and make my PVC shopping list.  Until then...here are my plans!