Building a Muffler for a Drain Pipe

This system is in my friends bedroom, and he asked me to make the drain quieter.  Heres what I did, and it worked really well.  After building this muffler, you cant even tell when the water is draining unless youre watching the water level in the fish tank.

This was the sketch of my idea.  The drain pipe would point down into the fish tank, but would not be submerged in the water.  A larger diameter pipe would sit around the drain pipe, with the bottom end submerged.  The larger pipe would be held onto the drain pipe with a wooden dowel through both pipes.  The larger pipe will muffle the sound of the splashing water.  To reduce the noise further, you could plug the top of the larger diameter pipe with cloth, foam, saran wrap, etc.

 I ended up using saran wrap, and the larger diameter pvc pipe wanted to float, so it started leaning to the side.  This may help the muffler, because the water runs down the side of the pvc pipe rather than splashing into the tank.  Im planning on replacing the saran wrap with something better looking, but I want to test some options.

Our tilapia Zeus seems to miss the splashing water, though.  He used to like being splashed with the draining water.  Oh well, it needed to be quieter.

And the garden is looking good.  The growth has been slow, because the water was pretty dirty.  I did a partial water change, and cleaned the filter and plumbing.  I hope that helps the plants a bit.  After the water change, the nitrates are still high, and the pH is about 7.5.  I added a little pH down to get the pH closer to 6.8.

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Earthship in Philly

Back in November, I found out from a friend that there was an earthship being built in north-Philadelphia.  It turns out that it wasnt exactly an earthship (doesnt follow all the earthship design principles), but an earthship-inspired structure which was being built on a vacant lot to serve as a teaching space for children in the area.  If youre unfamiliar, an earthship is a structure built from recycled materials that uses natural systems to light, heat, and insulate the building.  Wikipedia has a nice description:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship.

Philadelphia has had lots of funding troubles with the public education system recently, and some locals wanted to build a space where they could teach local kids about gardening and self-sufficiency.  They were also working on creating a community garden in the lot.  It was pretty awesome.

My girlfriend and I got to the site eager to help.  We were greeted with smiles, and put to work mixing concrete, and filling it into the gaps between stacked tires.  They had already pounded dirt into the tires, and stacked them in a circle to create the foundation for the structure.  The wooden frame for the windows and roof was being constructed while we placed the concrete.  A lot of the people volunteering were from the local community, and many just came from around the city to volunteer.  It was really great seeing people enthusiastic about working towards a common goal of creating a better community, without expecting anything in return.  Heres some pictures of the progress made over the winter.

I havent had a chance to get back to help on any of the work days since then, but I want to give a huge shout out to all who were involved that day (many of whom are still working on this project): Tommy Joshua, Elissa Millman, Greg Alden, Benjamin Schmitt, Matt Bennett, Evgeny Pogorolev, Lana Kaminker, Bonzai Holmes, Dusty Hinz, Maaman Rezaee, Brian Mungavin, and anyone else that was there that may not have met, and anyone who helped out with any of the other work days that I couldnt make it to!

Heres the facebook page for the park where you can find out about future work days, and get involved with this awesome project:  https://www.facebook.com/NorthPhillyPeacePark

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