Carey Ma

Welcome Carey,

 

You are involved in some fascinating projects, and I'm thrilled to have you be part of the Aquaponic Gardening community!  I am very familiar with the concept of Ecolonomics as I spent hours in discussions with Wayne Dorband, who lives about 45 minutes from me.

 

I hope you find this an interesting place to explore aquaponics.  There is a real blend of experienced and new aquapons in this community, so please don’t hesitate to join in.  Always thrilled to have experienced growers join us – please post some photos of your system!  I would also love it if you would be willing to start a group on blending your own fish feed.  This is a topic of huge interest to this community.

A good place to start is to read the “How to Use This Site” link on the upper right corner, “Start Here” section of the Main page.

Please add a profile photo, participate and check in with us every day!  We are constantly posting news about aquaponics and the good food movement.

Thanks again for joining us, and I look forward to getting to know you.

Sylvia

Thanks for that, Carey.  Your comment box is pretty close to the bottom of your page. Status updates are now off the home page in the left column.

did more reading on the site today and read your background. I'm quite impressed and thankful that I have made your acquaintance. I've never heard of ecolonomy or about Dennis Wearver's drive to work for a better tomorrow. Brain is reeling with questions and excitement. I too have dreams of a sustainable future within communities however my work at this point is rather small scale. I am the local neighborhood guru on soil based ag and am helping my neighbors develop gardens while I build my own knowledge base. Thomas Jefferson is my personal hero and he was into some revolutionary (for the time) gardening practices; many of which we take for granted today. I wonder if you could recommend a good book for someone with a science background for aquaponics? I have Sylvia's book on order but would like to get something now. Many thanks, take care. Paul

Hiya Carey, is aquaponic popular in China? I suspect most city folks would not have enough space for aquaponic?  When I visited Beijing in the 80s, most families lived in small apartments, not enough space for a largest aquarium.  Guess things may have changed.

Carey,

Having extension help is great, but it is limited.  We are always fighting to exist..  Those trays are speedling trays.  Unfortunately they are quite expensive.  I am rethinking the needs of a tray and hope to have a new, cheaper tray out there for lettuce.

 

Aha!  So that explains it!  ;)  My holistic doctor has a great poster on her wall that says, "Everything I needed to know in life, I learned from Star Trek!"  and lists wonderful points and lessons from the series.  Your vision is incredible and the world needs more like you!  I must say that is the first thanks I have ever heard given to Monsanto, but look at the context!  They are evil!

Hay Carey,

      We have eaten some of them but most we have been growing out for sponges.  When they are really small they taste good enough but I notice that the skin get bitter really quick and we haven't much tried just eating the pulp from inside the medium size lufa's.  My ducks really love eating the flowers.

Hi Carey, 

Thanks for the comment and advice and the new thread on making your own fishfood. I am going to try my hand at that soon. The growbeds are the black 2 foot square tubs and the fish tank and sump tank are 275 gallon IBC tanks. TC Lynx hooked me up with a great timer and indexing valve that floods two of the growbeds at a time. Works great! I have taken some black polypropelene closed cell foam and wrapped the IBC tanks to keep out the sun and keep algae from growing. I posted some new pics to contribute to the community. I appreciate all of the knowledge that everyone shares on this site...it is awesome! 

Greetings Cary,

Thats funny lived here and went to college in MI, I live here but grew up in MI.

By any any chance a Spartan grad?

I built this system based on the concept theres got to be a cheaper affordable way of gardening, Yearly between, plants, fuel for tilling, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer I was spending about $3-400 on my garden, not counting the hours on end pulling weeds, watering for an hour everyday and electricity for my well pump. With the produce I'll get back, and money saved, by next fall it will have paid for itself easily. 2 year payback.

I wanted to build something affordable and easy, my area of expertise is HVAC, energy management and controls. I've always had the knack for building what people say can't be done. Just like greenhouse efficiency, I truly believe I can build the most energy efficient greenhouse on the planet, and have just designed the most efficient solar water that I've seen to date, nothing on the market like it (doesn't use water so you never have to worry about freezing). My hydrogen generator blows away anything you see on youtube. If I were to build the system I have in mind it would look like something out of a sci-fi movie.

I'm not worried about you using my idea or photo, what bothers me are the "high officials" you want to make a presentation to. I say lets take it 1 step farther, Baker & Daniels has an office here and Beijing, This could revolutionize the world with cheap production cost making AP affordable to all.

Remember about what you said about refusing to sell your hard labor, me neither nor will I give it away for the corporate scum to get richer on, lay out a presentation with my pics, send it to me, and lets see if we can both make money before it is stolen and maybe change the world in the process....hows that for a counter?

Aloha Carey,

Yes, you can use my pics as long as your are not misrepresenting the context of the original pictures. I freely post pictures to inspire others to get involved with growing their own food. I have has issues with others using my pics to promote ventures that I am not involved with.

I love the sequence of photos that you are referring to. My daughter saw ripe strawberries during our morning fish feeding and she had to eat them. I was lucky enough to have the camera in my pocket that day. We have the sequence framed and hanging on our wall.

I am working on sourcing materials from your area and was wondering if you might be able to help me out. I have started a discussion http://aquaponicscommunity.com/forum/topics/need-help-sourcing-whol...

I would like any incite you have on this subject since you live in China. I am sure this subject will be valuable for others who are wanting to do the same thing.

Chris

Heres my thoughts. Myself I too am always broke. But if we both can make money and help the world at the same time before the capitalist scum get involved....which they will as soon as attorneys get involved this could be what the AP community and organic community needs

Beijing in their attempt to look good to the world is utilizing alternative technology as well as trying to come up with solutions to their dissappearing crop land. Rooftop systems as a selling point to the top officials would not only make China look good but would serve a dual purpose and feed lots of people if these were promoted as an answer to existing food, farmland and toxic chemical problems. Entire school roofs could be used, lines along railroads, on top of factories. On top of high rise buildings. Just go through beijing and estimate the rooftop sizes and you could come up with a pretty good number on the thousands of acres that could be utilized with your and my systems.

With Chinas ability to mass produce, I read recently china has committed 50 billion to solar panel production plants and are going to corner the world market. Its speculated PV will be down to $1 a watt by 2013. If I built my system for $800, in China they could be built for a 1/4 of the cost.

If a person was well versed (such as yourself) in ecologyand has a presentation with the right people, this could go over well as well as solve a lot of food problems while maximizing existing real estate as being dual purpose and serving as a farm.

Have any connections with any honest chinese businessmen? Factories in China through Ali Baba are always soliciting to build products for pennies on the dollar.

A good presentation and some honest businessmen would be all it takes. I believe China has way more to gain with this, not only in jobs but environmentally.

I also believe a horizontal verticle tiered system is the way to go for maximum production. Just my thoughts.