Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Have you caught any fish?

I have been harvesting fish for the past 3 month, some has been used to make trout pate', some to make herbs marinated smoked filets, some for trout filled ravioli pasta production, some for our BBQ's, and some for trout fish cakes.

this is the golden trout when ready smoked and pate' pots.

some more veg pics from summer harvest

Yum!

Do you mail order?

Some of the visitors that have been in the grow-house this summer

Flipping heck, only one word - wow ! Huge congratulations, that looks like it is going really well. My AP system has just been ticking over this year whilst I was dealing with various emergencies but you've inspired me to pull my finger out for next year and start using my greenhouse to its full potential.

+1 to Bio Aqua, happy to see at least one post in this whole forum supporting open pond and algae.
Or, are there any more into this club?

Nice looking system and, like the others commenting here, it is good to see a viable operation running. You mention early being a chef - is that a part of your operation or did the AP side take all your time (7 days a week, 12 hour days mentioned)

For the ravioli issue - is it smoked trout ravioli? If not, maybe try that?

What are you doing for storage of fresh goods? Do you have a cool room to use?

Do you have a shop front for your goods and/or use markets to sell?

There are so many posts on AP forums explaining how difficult it is to make any kind of a living at AP so it is great to see it happening. I think many people think somehow you should be able to just grow stuff and have a living at it, but they miss the diea that you are showing - value-adding and having multiple ways to expose your product to customers will set up a momentum that brings customers to you.

Nils carborundum illegitimae... (Don't let the bastards grind you down!)

System is looking beautiful bio!

Kudos for the hard work.

Great photos too

I'm still a chef as every week I spend one full day in the kitchen preparing the food for weekends market, occasionally still take some booking as a Freelance events chef (1 month total work over the last year) and ideally as the farm is built I will swing back to do private chef service like I use to before the shifting.
Ravioli it's with smoked trout filling, for some reason they are not selling well, I have to invest more resources on marketing.
At present I have a fridge for keeping the food on hold between markets, our Processing and food preparation unit is still currently under major upgrade and until then I have to work smart! (only enough food to sell over the week-end, and if there is any left over.....that's our week-day working lunches! Once the unit is finished we will be having 2 standing fridges (enough for our small operation!)

Our main stream it's trough farmers market, local events, food fairs and sustainability shows plus a local restaurant, as we expand the production so the distribution channels.

Need your advice. I notice plenty of algae growth recently in our pond. Water looks good and clear. Fishes are happy, feeding all okay, and most of the time nibbling on the pond walls but plant look slightly dull. Is it that they are not getting nutrients and algae and water hyacinth sucking away everything? I reduced hyacinth into half size as a remedial measure.
Have you encountered anything like this in your open pond?

here there is the most natural way to treat algae....barley straw if you can get any, read this info material and give it a go.

http://www.ceh.ac.uk/sci_programmes/doc ... lalgae.pdf

here there is the most natural way to treat algae....barley straw if you can get any, read this info material and give it a go.

http://www.ceh.ac.uk/sci_programmes/doc ... lalgae.pdf[/quote]

Very useful info. I am reading through it. Thanks for the link, Paul.

All in all, very inspiring! Congratulations, I wish you much success.

I have big dreams for the commercial market, and hence a few questions:

-Why did you ditch a solids removal, swirl, clarifier etc. I have considered also including GBs to make use of the bio filtration as well as growing capabilities offered to bigger plants. But why did you take KISS to the extreme? Plus, you end up using sponges of some sort. I am a bit confused and intrigued. Also, you have worms in the media I suppose?

-Why invest in NFT? Any estimates on cost per hole/ sq m for both? I feel like I would just focus on DWC and invest into the solids/bio filtering capabilities and then just expand through DWC. Unless there is a true reason where NFT is better. Could the NFT offer better density or perhaps more vertical use?

- I had a look at your website, marvelous! You should definitely make use of a sump with Koi for customer appeal in the living area.

-Have you thought of shrimp in the troughs? Would it apply?

-Why are your rafts layered in two? To float better?

You and Rupert have kind of inspired me to experiment with low pressure aeroponics for indoor/vertically stacked purposes. Instead of the troughs being filled with water for DWC, have nozzles spray a decent volume of water that quickly runs off. This would allow for the vertical stacking although the electricity costs might be a bit high. Not to mention the solids would have to be very well filtered. How is your aeroponics holding up and what kind of pressure/nozzles are you using? Do you have valves between them to direct the pressure to where to want it (clean the tubes/nozzles)?

Best regards.