Sorry about the two short entries, as important as they may have been, I have been very busy with my daughters birthday celebrations. So I had better get back to work........
Anything that shows commitment to sustainability and Aquaponics gets my vote, like Here
Afnan is producing again and this time its about siphoning. A most worthy subject.
WARNING WARNING-Neville Passmore from the garden gurus? about Backyard Aquaponics
My (under construction) RAS & aquaponics system
Interactive mini-course helps to simplify the beautiful complexity of aquaponics
An aquaponics system off Valley View Drive west of downtown Kalispell
San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneur Gene Fredericks sees opportunity: to grow food. Lots of food
Yes even in Nicaragua... What great news. This web-site is still under construction
The pool now produces fruit, vegetables and herbs and is home to eight egg-laying chickens and more than 1,000 tilapia fish.
A peek at life in Honduras
Surely this is enough for this visit - Hey if you have a story about Aquaponics By all means let me know
or if there are any questions that you need answers to we will do what we can to help the Email is HERE
The Harbor Freight 10 ft. x 12 ft. greenhouse is nicely affordable. You cant get a store-bought greenhouse of this size for anything close to the $850 Harbor Freight price.
Because its spring, Harbor Freight has reduced the price on their 10x12 greenhouse by $50. At my local store, the sale is good through the end of May.
Better yet, you can get an additional 20% off through May 15th (google Harbor Freight coupon).
So if you have the 20% coupon and go to the store, you can pick up a 10x12 greenhouse for only $640 (plus tax). If you have to have it shipped, tack on $100 S&H.
This greenhouse gets decent reviews. Typical problems can be overcome cheaply. YouTube has numerous videos on "Harbor Freight greenhouse improvements." John at Growing Your Greens gives a nice overview of possible improvements (fast forward to 4:40). An additional idea is sealing the edges of the panels with waterproof aluminum tape.
If you, like me, dont need a greenhouse at the moment, check out the sale price on the 45 watt solar panel kit. Its not as cool as a Solman 135 watt generator, but its easier on the budget...
15 May update - Found another possible greenhouse option at Home Depot. Id have to modify my layout to fit the 10 ft. x 10 ft. footprint, but Im sure I could get it to work. $249 delivered straight to my door is rather attractive (though my community covenants would still prohibit me using this particular product since its 8 ft. tall ::pout::).
I was stymied about how I was going to carry the water from my 1000 gph pump back to my four growbeds. Id looked into 1" no-kink pond tubing and associated fittings/valves, but the tally was getting pretty pricey.
When I was first plumbing the 1000 gph pump in for just 2 growbeds, I figured garden hose might work - and if I was wrong, I would only be out the price of a single length of hose and a single splitter (with built-in ball valves). Garden hose ended up working fine for just two growbeds.
I still wasnt sure garden hose would work for the full-up system, particularly with the long (23) lengths needed to reach each of the two growbeds on the opposite side of the greenhouse from the sump. But I was willing to try. Turns out garden hose works like a charm. I even have to throttle the flow just a tad.
Youll want to get hose that is safe to use for drinking water, because regular hose can leach lead into the water. This set-up requires 60 feet of hose, so you could either get a single 75-foot hose (~$40 via Home Depot, search "lead-free hose") or two 50-foot hoses (~$23 each via Home Depot, search "neverkink boat hose"). You can get free shipping if your total order is over $50, assuming your local store doesnt have these hoses in stock.
Auto Top Up - Think Water Cooler
In watching Murray Hallams "Aquaponics: The First 12 Months," I saw his contraption for automatically adding water when the tank gets low - like the ballcock older toilets use to shut off flow into the bowl when its full of water after a flush. He had his hooked to the home-owners water spigot. My only trouble was I couldnt find the exact configuration at my local hardware store, and googling ballcock with my computers kid-friendly browser settings made finding anything online even harder.
Since I currently have goldfish in the sump, and plan to use the sump for small fish, I dont want my sump to run dry. Even if I couldnt find the exact contraption Murray uses.
I came up with the idea of a water reservoir, like a water cooler. I use the standard 5-gallon bottles to do this. I cut the neck off the bottom bottle and drilled 1" holes into the sides to allow tank water in.
Next I add 1/2 teaspoon of Amquel to an empty 5-gallon bottle, then fill with tap water. The Amquel removes chlorine and other nasty stuff from the tap water.
Finally I invert the regular 5-gallon bottle and rest it in the top in the modified bottle.
As the water in the system evaporates, the water in the 5-gallon reservoir glugs out, bit by bit. I anticipate this will make adding water a weekly chore and eliminate risk that my sump runs dry without me noticing.
Construction of a Kiddie Cover
I dont have kids that could/would drown in 20" of water, but Kiddie Covers make the fish happier. Bluegill, at least, dont like to be without cover (fear of predators that might scoop them out). Plus bluegill are known for jumping out of the tank (lost one myself that way).
I just used cheap 1x3 for the covers, supported by frames made of inexpensive 2x3. This picture showed in this post has a close up of the more complicated sump tank lide, which has a cut-out for the 5-gallon reservoir.
Finally, below is a link to some video footage I shot today. The first video is really long (over 12 minutes) showing how the kiddie covers work, feeding fish, how the CHOP plumbing works, the final bell siphon design, and the top-up tank.
The second video is 3 minutes long and explains how I plumb the water to the growbeds on the opposite side of the greenhose (and talks about my solar oven).
and Aquaponics
gets my vote, like Here
entrepreneur Gene Fredericks sees opportunity: to grow food. Lots of food
... What great news. This web-site is still under construction
