Aquaponic Gardening

A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

All Blog Posts (837)

Getting Organic Certification and Income Enough to Support Myself

Hello,

I do not have a system yet and I am currently residing in Illinois.  I hope to be moving to the northern Arizona area early May 2013.  If I can line everything up I like to be able to begin installing my system upon arrival.  I am in the process of getting my business plan together and while doing research I received correspondence from a commercial aquaponics dealer.  I was told that most systems have difficulty getting certified as organic "except for their system."…

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Added by Dawn Jamison on October 16, 2012 at 11:22am — 27 Comments

High School System

We had a great morning visiting with the science teacher of Spanaway Lake High School.  The have recently acquired an aquaponics system and have asked us to help set it up.  We visited their spacious 30'x60' greenhouse.  Lots of room and amenities to allow for a great set up that will be productive and educational.

We initially concluded their out of the box system was going to be inadequate.  They do have a nice 500 gallon tank, and a marginally sufficient bio-filter.  The small raft…

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Added by Rick Stillwagon on October 14, 2012 at 7:04pm — 5 Comments

back from being AWOL

Back after being AWOL for a while.......been doing lots of studio work, filling orders and whatnot in our jewelry business thru the hot months.

Aquaponicville has run amok....sweet potato's have taken over my 16' long gravel bed forming a pretty huge green canopy on the back (north ) wall and roof...

Malabar spinach has also gone rogue in the flow thru bed, as well as some really good growth on volunteer papaya trees I rescued from the compost tumbler..

Got the NFT node set…

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Added by Steve Bradbury on October 13, 2012 at 7:45am — No Comments

Why I Do What I Do

I'm an old fart, but not a mean old fart. I'm a fat guy, but not too jolly. Being retired gives me a lot of time to think, to read, and to research on the net.

You can get a lot of good training watching the YouTube videos, and reading blogs. I've really improved my cooking as I read and then put into practice the teaching and the recipes I've downloaded. I find myself looking at other stuff as well. Peak oil, restoring the soil,…

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Added by Lloyd Booth on October 11, 2012 at 11:08pm — 4 Comments

Calculation FCR(Feed Conversion Ratio) before and after sorting - for trout breeding farms

Hello,

There is technical confusion for me to understanding how transferring  trouts from one raceway to another raceway through sorting will(not) effect FCR amount in origin raceway and destination raceway , because when we transfer trout from one raceway to another one ,we add history of feeding of each of them(trouts) to destination raceway , so this factor should re-calculate for both of raceways , 

Is my theory for effecting of sorting to FCR re-calculation correct or…

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Added by kaveh arabdashti on October 9, 2012 at 8:06am — 4 Comments

Tawnya Sawyer podcast

Colorado Aquaponics grows local food, designs and builds aquaponics systems, provides project management services and delivers educational programs.

http://www.scoop.it/t/aquaponics-world-view/p/2878810770/tawnya-sawyer-on-aquaponics-for-business-or-self-sufficiency-the-survival-podcast

Added by Jim Hall on October 5, 2012 at 10:29pm — 1 Comment

Organic Debate: That Flawed Stanford Study

I tried to ignore the month-old “Stanford study.” I really did. It made so little sense that I thought it would have little impact.

That was dumb of me, and I’m sorry.…

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Added by Jesse Hull on October 3, 2012 at 2:30pm — 1 Comment

Local Farming in Russia: For a country that only has a 110 day growing season, this is truly impressive.

"It turns out that Russia’s current agricultural model is one that thrives as a result of the millions of small-scale, family-owned and -operated, organically-cultivated farms that together produce the vast majority of the food consumed throughout the country."…

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Added by Jesse Hull on October 1, 2012 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Arduino woes solved today...

Today I solved a major problem I've been having with the Arduino and temperature sensors. When I first set everything up it was working great... no issues. Then a few months ago I moved some sensors around and reconfigured a bunch of wiring, etc. and it started behaving poorly with erratic readings or error messages so I figured I must have a loose connection some where. Turns out that I needed to adjust the pull-up resistor in the circuit to a lower resistor. Whoa 'la... All sensors are…

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Added by William Bombardier on September 30, 2012 at 9:10pm — No Comments

Aquaponics Conference

While in Denver for the Aquaponics conference, two of the great opportunities I had were meeting Dr. James Rakowcy and Murray Hallam.  The "Father" of aquaponics shared his 30 year experience developing the UVI system.  I felt very akin to him as he described his trials and tribulations in developing his system.  Blunders and intervention by Mother Nature making it a challenging…
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Added by Rick Stillwagon on September 29, 2012 at 9:04am — No Comments

Week 20 - The Trout Experiment Ends

I'm going to harvest the fish, clean the tanks and the grow beds, and get them ready for the winter growing season this weekend. This has been fun, and surprisingly successful for a first experiment, thanks largely to all the helpful experts here on this website. The fact that I kept several trout alive for 20 weeks exceeded my expectations. I was disappointed that I lost so many the first day, but pleasantly surprised that I only lost a few to other causes. The growth rates of the fish…

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Added by Tom OBrien on September 27, 2012 at 8:42pm — No Comments

What is going on..

Not to sure about what is going on with my setup.  One fish died overnight and two more are on the way out.  pH is at 7.0 today but was at 9.0 last night.  Ammonia is still at 1.0 and still no sign of nitrites or nitrites.  Water temp hi is 74 low is 71.4.

Cuttings look great, made mini terrariums with old soda bottles to cover the plants, also added a neck to the siphon to raise water level to reach seeds and cuttings for the time being.  Smells a bit fishy in the tank, but then I…

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Added by John Cubit on September 23, 2012 at 9:34am — 3 Comments

Food for Thought

Here's an exercise to try at home. You will need a working stopwatch, or another timepiece that measures seconds. Before you begin, seat yourself in a comfortable chair and loosen your clothing.

Watch the second hand as it passes around the face of the clock. Picture the moment of your death, perhaps many decades in the future, or perhaps only a few years or months (who can know?). Wait for the second hand to reach the starting point at the top of the…

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Added by Vlad Jovanovic on September 22, 2012 at 5:18am — 4 Comments

Tilapia loose and armed

Has anyone got info. about an incident in Modoc county where some tilapia got loose into waterways and decimated the local native population?  I did not know Tilapia got so large.  No, really this is what I read and I am wanting to find out if the story is true or maybe made into something bigger than it really is, was or NOT at all. 

Added by Blair Rice on September 19, 2012 at 10:30pm — No Comments

New DWC Raft System is in design progress ...

Ya'll,

It's been a while since I posted anything here, so it's about time ...

We have expanded our gardening area by adding a DWC Raft System. It is currently under construction and I have posted some pictures of our progress.…

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Added by Bob Vento on September 17, 2012 at 4:51am — No Comments

My system details and plans

I'm still in the design/gathering parts/building phase of this project.

My fish tanks are housed in a 9'X17' insulated room of my barn. I have 5=275 gallon IBC's. They all have SLO that goes to a combined 2" outlet. One of the IBC's can be converted to a sump (incase the drain line to the greenhouse freezes).

My greenhouse is about 180' away from the fish room. It is 20'Wx40'L. I have not yet connected it to the fish room. I hope to get the trench done this fall. Inside, my…

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Added by Tony Gilliam on September 13, 2012 at 11:47am — 2 Comments

Trout Harvest Time

The basement trout farm in 150 gallon stock tanks has been going for 17 weeks now and some of the fish are finally ready to harvest. I've had mixed success with this project, but I've learned a whole lot in the process. First thing, before you bring trout home, you need to have a secure cover ready to go. Our goldfish didn't do much exploring, but the trout apparently had a strong desire to see more of the basement. I lost six trout the first day because there were gaps in the cover around…

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Added by Tom OBrien on September 11, 2012 at 10:17pm — No Comments

System is up and Running Well!

 

Greetings fellow aquaponic enthusiasts!

I’ve put together my aquaponic system and website to share information and my experience in development of sustainable, personal food production for better health as well as my passion for living things.  I’ve always enjoyed gardening, but have struggled with the extremely short growing season here in Minnesota.

So I decided I would do something about that (besides complain) and I built a “lean-to type”  of greenhouse alongside…

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Added by William Bombardier on September 11, 2012 at 8:33pm — No Comments

Webcam support

Hey could you take a look at this for me?

Is anyone actively using live webcam support for our aquaponics community?

Being able to see the fish, plants, tests.   Seems a perfect application.

I think it is the next best thing to being there.

 

John…

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Added by John White on September 10, 2012 at 3:26pm — 9 Comments

Hawaii Farmers Union United

Glenn Martinez and Natalie Diaz Cash of the Hawaii Farmers Union United and Olomana Gardens, announce their upcoming trip to the Aquaponics Association Conference in Denver, during the August 2012 Maui meeting.

Added by Jim Hall on September 4, 2012 at 12:59am — 1 Comment

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