Well progress is rolling along now. I took all these pictures between yesterday and the day before. I also bought the 3 pumps I will need. The two large ones
pump up to 18 feet head height, and are rated at a 505 GPH at 13 feet. They cost $100 each. The smaller one is for the bottom level of the
hydroponic system. It has a head height of 14 feet, and is rated at 375 GPH at 7 feet. I will need to check once I open them, but I expect that they don't have filters. So I expect to need to create a simple filter for each of them.
I've added resting blocks to all of the vertical support structure framing wood that the horizontal framing rests on. That will just aid in support of all the weight of the water when the systems are flooded. Each level will likely be over 2000 pounds when flooded (6000 pounds for all 3 levels). They aren't pretty, but functional. I could have cut them all to the same size (etc.), but I wanted to use the scrap wood I needed to cut earlier for it (most of it won't really be seen much when finished anyway).
Also note how I did the top "A" frame at the end. I've added some more wood to it for attaching the plastic to, but don't have a picture of that at this time. I will do both ends the same way, but I need to build a temporary later/platform that will be attached to the greenhouse support structure on the other side before I can do that (the one that's built wont fit between the greenhouse, and retaining wall).
Not sure if I mentioned this before or not, but all of the vertical supports are attached to the electrical conduit tubing with 3 inch decking screws at the top, middle, and bottom. I took a picture if one of the screws and you can see that it goes through the wood into the conduit tubing. I always pre-drill the holes through the wood and tubing using a drill bit that's a little smaller than the screws. That way I they are easy to screw in, and wont split any of the wood. There wood deck screws and not self tapping, so they wont screw through the electrical conduit without a pre-drilled hole anyway. But as long as you don't use a drill bit that's to big, they screw into the electrical conduit nicely, and are extremely tight with no chance of them working their way loose.
I also took better pictures of where I attached pieces of pressure treated wood to the foot of the regular 2x4's. That way it's only pressure treated wood that touches the ground. The guy in the pictures is a friend from across the street that has helped me work on the greenhouse, he just happened to stop by that day to see how the progress was going.
I have the outside horizontal support framing for the top level up, and I am working on the inner support framing. If things go as planed, I will have most of that up by tomorrow night. Then I'll be going to get more of the 'cull" wood Tuesday morning. Then I'll need to paint it Tuesday afternoon. And hopefully I will have the rest of the hydro system support structure finished and started on making the hydroponic system by Wednesday.