Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A Casual Observer !
I was a professional chef for few years to put myself through Electrical Engineering school. So, cooking is the second nature.
Post graduate degree in Computer science. Also a mathematics degree.
Shooting, reloading for about 40 years. Competition long range shooting for few years. Some sort of gunsmith!
Hunting and salt water fishing for food only.
Blacksmithing, metal works, wood works.
Diesel engines grease monkey! (Cummins Diesel)
And retired US Army

3rd year (soon to be journeyman) Automotive mechanic here.. been in industry for 7 years also with some experience as a heavy duty mech.
Basic knowledge of hydraulics from working in various mills growing up helping millwrights.
Car stereo's as a hobby
Can weld fairly well stick or mig love to build things with metal. I'm sure as i mature i will become as many of you have said .. a Jack of all trades... refuse to hire someone to fix something that if i put my mind to can figure out on my own. Do a bit of everything tho. If anything breaks I am for sure not afraid of taking apart and seeing how it ticks or attempting to repair. Have repaired a few car amps and electronics with various degree's of success.
Love to fish in salt or fresh water and becoming competent fly fisherman.

i'll chime in.. i'm soon to be 50, married to Helen, 4 kids and 2 stepkids, 1 grandaughter, and a grandson on the way
i spent 4 years in the navy, anti submarine warfare, anti air warfare and anti surface warfare (radar operator) - not much call for that in civvy life, so i got into drafting and autocad way back when it was 2.5d (2 and a half dimension)
ended up taking care of the computers at every office i did drafting in, so went into doing pc stuff, moved on to servers and have been working on them for a while now
my main hobby for almost 2 years has been the ever expanding ap system..
my mandolin, octave mandolin, and fiddle have been gathering dust, i suck at all 3 but can pick a couple tunes on the mando, gave up the fiddle cuz the shoulder was blown out, might pick it up again (when nobody is home)... maybe i'll start playing to the fish...

good stuff Keith, can't wait to hear the results of strings on fish growth

I am a fabricator, I spent a chunk of my life as a solder, and I hope to become an engineer.

Electronics Engineer working in Microelectronics field (IC, chip design) developing communications chips in WiFi, ethernet and other protocols. Various programming languages. Lots of work-flow and automation scripting.

Looking at hobbies/activities that get me away from a computer screen.

IT, technical (mainly consulting - software development and integration, especially opensource) and managerial.

Electronics technician (currently security and audiovisual mostly). Hobby woodworker. I also do pretty anything around the house that needs doing myself anything from painting to concreting, if i don't know how to do something i learn.

I'm an audio engineer/theatre technician by schooling
I've toured doing audio and wireless for broadway type shows (Yes, I taped microphones to people's feet on Liver....I mean Riverdance for some years.)
A stagehand AV tech mostly lately (trying to quit)

I like to build things and I'm skilled at soldering (I learned to solder by making jewlery with my Mom when I was little so after that building audio cables and doing electronics projects is fairly easy as long as the iron is the right size for the project.)

My skills in the lighting and sound troubleshooting department I believe have led me to good skills playing with water flow, heck water flow trouble shooting is easy since you can see if it's leaking or disconnected by the geyser of water shooting out and showing you with fish water.

I refer to my plumbing as PLART though since I'm often playing with scrap bits and the strange structures that come of that usually look more like sculpture rather than proper plumbing.

I like to build things and play with power tools though I do sometimes need to save some of the cut lists for the cook seeing as he has bought me some of the power tools and having him do the cutting is sometimes the safest way to let him help. And since I've mentioned the Cook, he makes a wonderful wife and I would be hard pressed to keep up with cooking, grocery shopping and cleaning without him. He is also in the entertainment business doing lighting direction for corporate meetings and other stage hand work as well. In the past he has been a chef/cook and even a massage therapist. I'm a lucky woman.

My Aquaponics addiction has become so severe that I seem to be getting drawn into Aquaponic Farming as my new line of work, I'll let you know if I ever actually get to give up my "day job".

This thread has already turned into a really good read, and may well be potentially very useful.

What an amazingly interesting bunch of people.

Please send a PM to anyone you think might be willing to share their knowledge, and encourage them to drop in a quick post.

Especially anyone who has a Nobel Prize for theoretical astrophysics. I could really use some tips on how to get a Nobel Prize as I need some quick cash for a new project, and have a few ideas.

But on a less serious note, keep it coming, and please let kind, sharing, skilled-up people know of this thread's existence, as not everyone reads everything. Particularly those people who have hobbies and informal skills that they might not think worthy of being posted even though you know better. They will have the skills that will be the most difficult to find when you really need them.

How else will you find a a person who dabbles in repairing those things that were not quite digital, but had those numbers on painted white flicky things, that flip over every minute on your 1970's clock radio.

When you need that tech to solve some niggling problem with your new fish size sorting device, it could be devastating to the future of aquaponics without them.

PM someone who cares today

Wow, what an interesting mix of people with different experience......

I had just done a horticultural apprenticeship when I then moved straight into electrical drafting using Autocad, much more money in it. Spend about 12 years drafting, managing company website, office administration, setting up and maintaining network, running Quality assurance systems etc, all things that need doing in an engineering office.. Doing a lot of AP on the side during this time...

Lost that job after 12 years and after another year working for the electrical engineer at Perth airport I decided it was time to try and make a living from AP stuff... Started selling my book package online and started a crash course experience in running a business... Now we employ 6-7 people, open 7 days a week, publish a magazine, import and export, and turn over about a million $ a year.... Sounds like a lot but what's left at the end of the day all goes to providing the free info things we do.

I run my own architectural and structural drafting company. what this means is we are a one stop shop for small builders/ owner builders wanting to build a new home, home extension, unit development, commercial building, church, industrial warehouse, mining shed etc.

recently rebranded, with offices in Perth (Joondalup), Rajkot (India) and Ontario - reason for this is when downturns occur, we help out the other offices. I just returned from India to provide training... their 3D images are photorealistic and it also means we can provide these images to clients much cheaper than here in Perth.

Studied Town Planning, industrial design and finally finished a fine art degree. I now run company that specializes in reclaimed timber products mostly picture frames. I also build and repair guitars. I have built more than 500 oil can electric guitars. I also do custom electric guitar builds for people, and just for the hell of it. I am skilled in a whole range of technical skills as a result of the guitar building and fine art background. mostly in the sculpture and printmaking arena's. Don't ask me to do a painting. That's my wife Leila's dept. She is also a skilled graphic artist and graphic designer and worked for the packaging dept at woolworths here in SA for a few years.

Leila; that is a preaty name. Many years ago, I had a friend from Iran by that name. She was a very good human being.
I believe she also was in arts.

Cool I'd never heard of oil can guitars, just went and had a look on youtube...