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Comment by Jim Fisk 4 hours ago

Hi Leo, bury the PT as far under ground as sunset likes. Not sure the oem pallet would take kindly to being under ground for long. As far as bloat is concerned I have had them push the cage out quite a bit when not supported as I describe. The 330s are even worse. I like mine square but I am a bit anal about such.

@TC I set my sump down 4 feet with no base as I wanted ground contact as much as possible for temperature reasons and just as you suggest I made sure there was sand under all and made an impression for the valve. I back filled right to the cage/liner AFTER filling the ibc full of water or it would surely collapse. Our soil here sets like hard clay so after numerous soakings I am confident I could now pull the liner with no cave ins. Also you MUST close the valve before reinserting the liner or you will likely break it off as the handle sticks out when open so fairly hard to make that mistake. Either way that would suck

Moderator Comment by TCLynx 5 hours ago

If lowering the IBC liner into a hole in the ground, you could I suppose remove the base but you will need the cage and maybe something else around the tank to keep the soil from collapsing into the cage and crushing the liner.  But as far as making the base sit nicely,  You might do that with soft sand.  Basically you need to form a mold shape much like the base or the bottom of the liner so that the ground will support it as well as the base did.  This could be a bit tedious to accomplish and if burying the IBC part way, you will probably not be accessing the valve so I would suggest making sure it is closed and maybe even putting a cap on it.

Comment by Leo White Bear 7 hours ago

Well Jim-

  According to the question that sunset asked, what you are doing is just replacing the oem base with a wooden Floor.  How does this address the problem of lowering the FT because it is too high for sunset??.

  All my FT have the oem base attached, but my friends have repurposed the base for for other projects with no adverse affects on the structure or "bloating" of the FT when filled with water.  One difficulty they do experience is using the built in drain valve, otherwise everything works well for them.

Comment by Jim Fisk 9 hours ago

@Pat. Yum, great idea. Do it. My trout are getting mighty big. Hurry

Comment by Jim Fisk 9 hours ago

@sunset, In my humble opinion the bottom of the cage and the top need support to keep the liner from expanding the cage and distorting it. Call me a fanatic but I don't want a bloated looking tank. I replace the 2 supports at the top after the liner is back in AND screw the bottom of the cage down to a base made from pressure treated garden ties covered with PT deck planks. You need to leave a space between the center 2 planks for that seam AND the drain ball valve.

Note the wider space at the center for the valve. Any large distortions and therefore stress of the plastic liner could IMO cause a failure over time so when I get rid of the metal base I make sure I replicate the shape as best I can. Personally I dislike the oem bases and often they are damaged by forklifts anyway and when it comes to getting 2 GBs from one ibc you will obviously come up short a base anyway on every other GB and I want them all to look basically the same. The GBs weigh far less than a full FT so I don't use as much support as you can see here:

I utilize every mounting screw hole and duplicate the same pattern for the upper half cage as well by drilling 1/4" holes in the same appropriate locations.

Hope this helps you and check out my other pics at my page by clicking on my avatar. There may be more there that can help and I started a FB page as well:

Smoky Mountain Aquaponics

Comment by Pat James 9 hours ago

My thoughts on the smoker is it belongs in a separate group concerning how to make use of the fish after you've grown them. Like tips for preserving....smoking salting, freezing, canning etc. Plus recipes or whatever.

I figure if a portion of my fish grow up to be harvested, I will be up to my butt in fish.

Comment by Phil Slaton 10 hours ago

Of course it is for smoking appropriate AP fish; you do eventually eat the trout or tilapia don't you?  Add more chips?  Simply remove the lid, remove the rack and add the chips.  Loosing smoke is not a problem when you are cooking 7 or 8 hours.

Comment by Leo White Bear 10 hours ago

Sweet, how do you add more chips without losing all the good smoke??

What does this have to do with aquaponics, unless you want to smoke your fish.

Comment by Phil Slaton 11 hours ago

Home Built Smoker - Best and Cheapest going http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUS1jeTGc68

Comment by Leo White Bear 11 hours ago

Just remove the base from the cage.  There is a series of screws that hold the cage onto the base.  Use the torx head on these and remove them just as, I assume, you did on the top brace bars.  You may have to set the lower cage on some bricks buried in the ground, to insure that the cage doesn't sink into the ground and then install the fish tank back into the cage.  The tank just sits on the ground (or floor) and the cage will support the tank and the water, no problem.

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