Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Gee Michael, I hope your life settles soon.

yeah, you had a kickin system, and lots of good things to say before things went a little berko. Welcome back

Sorry to hear things have fallen off the rails for you Michael.

Glad to have you back and I hope things get back on track in the New Year

Gee, Michael, I was hoping to get some fish from you when I got my system started in a few months. Pretty inconsiderate of you not to hold on a few more months...

Just kidding, as usual. Ditto what the others say. Cold beer is available here at Chaos Cottage as needed...

I am so sorry. I have been 2 years divorced so I know the pain.

I recently transfered to Huntsville Al. to a smaller airport so that I could have time to build up my AP system. We had a meeting this morning and I was informed that my Airline will be closing 16 stations in the next 4 months and mine was one of them. So good news is going around for all it would seem. 8-(

Mike I wish you the best and I know that you might not beleive me now, but I assure you that things will get better.

So please excuse me, I have to go figure out what station I am going to transfer to..lol

Happy New Year to all.

Your tilapia bloodline live on -- in your generous contribution to Alaska aquaponics. I have at least 200 fry now. (finally)

Sorry about that MF, hang in there...

2007 was a crappy year IMO, 2008 will be better!!!

Best of all to you MF!

Micheal, sorry to hear about the life changes... been down THAT road and it's never easy. You have a lot of friends and associates here that are wishing you the best. Stop in to the forum from time to time and check in, we will all be glad to hear from you and it will help take your mind off of the crap for awhile! Good luck.

Joe

Hi again Michael and others,

Having just got over my inhibition threshold for posting on this forum I have two things about Tilapia/commercial systems that I want to post:

MIKE SIPE'S TILAPIA HYBRIDS

Did anyone manage to find some independently-verified data on Mike Sipe’s hybrids, things like: growth rates, fillet yields, and whether they really are 100% male and sterile?

I spoke to Mike Sipe by phone from Australia in 1997 and he seemed open and approachable. Unfortunately the aquaculture project I was interested in at the time (in the Philippines) got nuked by the ’97/98 Asian currency crisis and I never got to verify Mike’s data on his hybrids. He's still making the same claims (actual he seems to be saying his fish are even further ahead of the pack (or should I say school).


MIMIMIZING RISK FOR A FLEDGLING COMMERCIAL TILIPIA/AP OPERATION

Maybe it would be less risky to increase the scale a little, from Michael's small-scale system to a small-medium scale system, but do it with a simpler system than "full" AP, with lower initial unit costs.

I say this in connection with a remark that Michael F made earlier i.e., that he may be headed for UVI; perhaps to do a short course there. I really like the work of James Rakocy’s group at UVI; both their greenwater system and their full AP system (tilapia with lettuce-or-basil-or-whatever). The scale is a fair bit bigger than Michael's last setup (and this may be off-track for Michael because he would need much more space) but the UVI greenwater/tilapia system, in particular, seemed to be an ideal way to start an AP-oriented commercial operation while limiting the initial capital costs, the complexity, and thereby minimizing the risk.

You can appreciate the essentials of the UVI greenwater system at a glance at the following link:

http://rps.uvi.edu/AES/Aquaculture/tankculture.html

with more photos and information here:

http://rps.uvi.edu/AES/Aquaculture/greenwater.html

This system seems to be as simple as it claims i.e.:

1 x 31160 litre growout tank
1 fairly small clarifier tank
and a couple of pumps.

No need for biofilters or any other expensive aquaculture gear.

UVI quotes a final stocking density after 24 weeks of 17 kg/cubic meter (1 cubic metre = 1000 litres) so you'd get around 530 kg of tilapia from your tank in 24 weeks. (And quite a bit more if you were using Mike Sipe's Tilapia AND they performed to specification).

You could even feed the sludge from the clarifier to a worm farm (giving more Tilapia food) and use the N- and P-rich water (and worm farm leachate & castings) on a patch of nearly-organic basil (sorry APers but it would have to be a dirt garden at first, methinks). This would allow you to get experience marketing a fair quantity of tilapia/basil while you plan your expansion to an even more productive (but more complex, higher startup cost, higher risk) fully AP system. I am not sure how many kg of basil you could grow from the greenwater sludge but the multipliers quoted for some AP systems say 7 kg basil for every 1 kg of fish see:

http://www.aquaponicsjournal.com/articl ... terUse.htm

That would imply an annual figure of 530 kg x 2 (fish crops per year) x 7 = 7,420 kg of basil.

Maybe you'd get 1/3 to 1/2 of that output from your initial dirt basil patch.
So even allowing for lower dirt garden productivity there seems to be some potential for profit there. UVI has operated these systems commercially for many years but they do concede that fish and vegeatable/herb prices are high in the Virgin Islands.

I have sorted through a fair amount of extra information about this greenwater system if anyone finds it of interest and I'd welcome any feedback, questions or alternatives. I am certainly no expert about this.

I will now revert to thinking for 12 months before each unsolicitted post.

Regards

Rob

Wow, thank you everyone for the support and wishes. It was a very bad year and yes I believe '08 will be better. Happy New Year to the folks in Oz. Joel..... congratulations on the tilapia! I'm glad to hear.

I am buying a new house soon. This time I will get a big backyard where I can erect a greenhouse proper.

Joel....any chance of you shipping some fingerlings back? haha.....I keed I keed.

Oh...and the title "almost divorced" really is fitting.

Sonoma isn't very far. We should get together sometime and share info and a cold one. PM me with your info so we can get in touch. Ciao