Friendly Aquaponics

[Jeremiah Robinson]

Anybody have a sense for Friendly Aquaponics?  

Do you know anyone who's taken their classes, or bought a system from them?

How do they compare to Nelson & Pade?

Their system designs look impressive, though their website isn't all that professional.

I'm looking into partnering with someone on the commercial side of things and curious about their reputation.  

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Hi Jim.  Anyone who knows me well will tell you how much I hate drama, so I am not willing to dredge up the ugliness around why I removed Susanne from this forum again. Suffice to say, however, that  I have banned less than a handful of people from this site in the nearly 5 years of it's existence (obvious spammers not included in that count) so you have to push the limits of bad behavior pretty hard to be banned from here.

Also, that greenhouse design was by a German scientist named Franz Schreier who presented it at the first Aquaponics Association conference that Gina Cavaliero and I organized in Sept. of 2011. Click here to see his presentation from the conference that he graciously agreed to share publicly.  Franz worked with the Friendly's on their installation and the greenhouse course they teach.  I haven't heard him mentioned since, so I don't know what happened. there.

[Jim Fisk]

Hey Sylvia, no argument here. I too was a victim of the OZ's rage and I was grateful to find that you had banned him regardless of how knowledgeable he is. I actually decided to stay off here because of him but a member wrote me weeks later and said the water was safe again:-) So I will take your well expressed reasons in good faith as I was not around here in those days and no, let's not go there. You have kept this forum peaceful as it should be and one of my favorite hangouts.

That is cool to know where that design came from. Of course Schreier got the concept from the Japanese as well. Wish I could afford one but I am limited to diy. You are right to mention him as I don't remember his name coming up either in the descriptions. I was guilty of assumptions I have to admit. Keep up the excellent work

[Scott Roberts]

Jim,  that greenhouse design is chinese, not japanese. And I believe that it's not friendly or schreier's design. The chinese have been building these since well before 2011.

[Jeremiah Robinson]

I've seen greenhouses like this in China, though made from different materials that are more labor-intensive but cheaper.  Could be that this combination of materials is Japanese or from Schreier.

[Jim Fisk]

Thanks Scott and Jere, you are both probably right but I bet these have been built in "that part of the world" :-) for at least 75 yrs or more as opposed to 2011. It is more the laminated beams and type of covering (ETFE) that are a newer concept and might be attributable to the Germans.

On a design note I feel as I study it that the solar angle really isn't that good in Northern latitudes. That angle of reflection should after all be at right angles to the Winter solstice in at least part and it most certainly is not which means reflective losses. Nonetheless I still think they are absolutely stunning from an artistic point of view. The work of Cord and Penn is a better far North approach and lends itself to DIY far easier. My GH is along their lines which date back to the 60's right out of Mother Earth News back in the Shuttleworth's day. In AP we have the advantage of not needing that wall of 55 gal drums since in our case we have a 2500G heatsink in our system water. Still have a case of those old mags but now I have all those issues on one DVD. We've come a long way baby.