Howdy y'all. Been looking into aquaponics a little bit lately, and started rummaging through my uncles junk heap, and found an old boat that is not really good for anything. Was considering if it might be useful as a tank or growbed or somesuch, didn't know if somebody who actually knew what they were talking about wanted to harbor an opinion?
What is the boat made of? I know the outside is made of water but what is the inside material/ Or is it metal?
keep in mind how you support the boat. it needs to be cradled properly or a interior load of grow medium or water could collapse the boat in a way to render it useless to your purposes. you are proposing using it in a way the opposite of how it was designed. jus sayin
I thought were joking because of the irony of boat and aquaponics. My big concern would be what will the water leach out of the boat. Unless you can get some moss growing on the sides not sure I would use this for a tank.
Most boats are designed to resist the external push of water against the hull: Not the internal push against nil counter resistance from the opposite side of the hull cladding. Berming the hull exterior may support the hull if the mass of the water/growing medium contained within the boat is greater than the strength of the hull.
The only thing I would be careful with, is if it's painted, on the inside. For years, aluminum was painted with zinc chromate primer, because it was so effective at sticking to the bare metal, and gave the top coat something to adhere to. The problem with zinc chromate, is that one of the byproducts is hexavalent chromium (aka Cr6). You might remember hearing that before, if you're at all familiar with the Julia Roberts movie, "Erin Brochovich". Nasty, nasty stuff! Ask anyone who has ever had to take old paint off of aircraft parts! This primer is still used on boats, because of its effectiveness, and the fact that it's toxic to marine growths that can foul a boat's hull. Since you're not growing anything on the outside of the boat, though, your only danger could be if it was used on the inside of the boat hull. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a bit adverse to using anything that could introduce toxic substances to the food I'm growing! Be safe!
Only if duckwood is affected by Cr6. Like I said, a simple scrape test, if it's painted on the interior, will tell you whether there's a yellow primer on the inside. If so, you could probably take it somewhere, to have it sandblasted, but then you're dealing with raw, unpainted aluminum, and would probably want to let it sit outside a season, to allow a nice corrosion layer buildup (think of a new percolator, and how nasty that coffee tastes, until you build up a layer of protection, between the java, and the aluminum). Another possibility might be to put a liner of some sort inside the boat, maybe?
