Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Okay I am putting my hat in to the ring for Rio Gallinas school (Charter School Las Vegas NM) to rebuild their systems in their cool geodesic green/fish-house back in action as a fully functioning Aquaponics grow-dome. I know reaching out to help others will bring me great peace and spiritual enlightenment. Oh and I have two plus years aquaponics research, design of plants/fish systems. I have the best minds in aquaponics to help me quickly get answers and solutions @ backyardaquaponics.com/forum hint hint I'm no expert as you know, so if you have suggestions, please comment.
I do not have any precise information until I go there and take stock of what they have left. I understand the filtration is gone, also unclear is the condition of the FT something like 4 feet tall & ten feet wide. Wires were removed, I assume what ever processor they had may also be gone. One of the parents http://www.nmhu.edu/hu-graduate-gets-national-attention-for-makerspace/ is a master at working with kids with all the inexpensive DIY processors. This could be a high tech build as the school is well funded for this project. I'm more excited than knowledgeable of design, but that's okay right now.

Good luck Brian, I am sure you will do good things for them

Well, what is the time line to begin? I might be able to help if I am in the state.

Adam

Thank you Darren and Adam. I haven't heard back from them as it is a weekend. The director of the sciences department was here helping my good friend Jason work in the forest yesterday, She's seen what I have done here, so I believe I am in. I should be able to submit so kind of plan immediately
Your help would much be appreciated.
It may be that this system can be built from scratch, and we can setup everything with volumes we want from the start.
They may still have "hydro-beds" as she called them. I see they need to understand how everything works so the teachers can explain to students what's what.
I believe they had a galvanized ~1500 gallon FT with pond liner in it.
After my experiences with a rough surface in the FT I'll push for a plastic tank to start with.
I hadn't been there to know what the dimensions of the geodesic dome is. I have been to the school and saw the dome across the street, but still I'm uncertain on its size.
With your experience and knowledge from Ryan's http://www.collegeofaquaponics.com/author/ryan/ course I feel much better at making this work properly. Thank you.
I'll re-post this on their Facebook page in the hopes it's get noticed sooner..
Brian.

Provide a link to their page.

Adam

http://riogallinasschool.org/ you are most awesome Adam

Any advice I can offer that will help you can count me in.....

Thank you so much Andres. I would love your help.

Good, you can do all the math/calculations and I'll check your work.....

Adam

Remind me to start taking memory boosting vitamins and do brain exercises.

Wait, what was I suppose to do today? I am in need of it as well....

Adam

How big is the area?
What equipment/materials are salvageable/available already?
What are they wanting to grow?
How much funding is available?
Timeline?
Are students to participate in the build
Type of fish to grow?

That should get started......

Thank you Adam.
This project has blossomed into much more. While the little charter school made me the offer to rebuild their growdome, which I'll describe in a minute, I made contact as well with the local university NMHU. I spent the day with my long time friend retired ADA Joe Ulibarri. Joe's grandson goes to Rio Gallinas School so I asked Joe to help me with the meets and greets.
We talked to the teacher in charge of the grow dome, getting a feel for what they want to do with the grow dome.
This grow dome will be geared to K-7 education.
The geodesic dome is ~13 feet tall and 30 feet across

the skirt wall is 2 feet tall.
https://www.ziptiedomes.com/geodesic-dome-calculators/3v-geodesic-dome-calculator.htm
I forgot to add the skirt height.

Anywho, this grow dome wasn't ever an aquaponics system. The 2" deep 2" wide galvanized walled dirt tanks line 80% of the interior walls of the dome. There are other beds on the interior of the dome set up in a radial pattern. Apparently the water from the fish tank was used to drip irrigate the dirt beds.
We've got a clean slate to work with. I recommended we use gold fish as this is a K-7 school. I believe kids will rather have fish they aren't told they'll need to eat.
Okay, another exciting thing happened when we got back to Joe's house. Joe's son Mario is director of the of a department at the university (I'm sorry I can't name the department with so many new technologies emerging these days) which included embedded systems processor. Mario was the person in town who ran the Maker Scouts for many years. Fortune favors this project because Mario has been asked by Los Alamos Labs to create a course at NMHU for the students to use their previous courses in a specific application, you may have guessed it already --- agriculture and aquaculture. Mario said my project fits the grant perfectly! Not only has the funding risen up from a local K-7 school I've been given a a whole class of designers to add all the modern goodness they can imagine. I'll be something like a adjunct professor, adjunct lecturer guiding the university students in all the measurements and system controls needed for a remote monitoring and remote control online system!
Time line- one semester.
Funds - at this point I've been told I'll have full funding for whatever we need.
I've been assured I'll have be able to count on volunteers to help do heavy lifting and whatever we need, as this grow dome has been a part of this community for 30 years or more.

I have been too busy, but there is a person on you tube called "TheRealMartian". He is an engineer/homesteader that has tackled numerous projects for system monitoring. He was just getting into it in spring of last year, but I have NOT followed keeping up with current projects b/c I'm always doing something......I will be catching up when the snow starts to fly.

*ahem*, I am sure we'd be more than happy to help with the design and equipment testing......Arduino? would help me along with other projects I have been considering....

Adam