Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I love reading your blog. Continue doing it.
I'll send some infos on Pacu soon, but i'd like to know if you have the latin name so that my research can be more precise.
Do you have small cichlids in the rivers around your place?
I love those fish, they care for their babies and congeneres. If you can get some in an aquarium, I'm sure you'll love them too.
I'll really try to come to see you sometime (honeymoon coming up, could make it more usefull than staying in bed all day long ), so i'll PM you to get some infos soon.
Keep it going

We would love to have you visit - if you do, make sure to let us know and we will get ready.

I do believe guapote and pinto are cichlids. Not sure. They do very well aquaculture here.

Thanks for the kind words on my blog.

More progress today. Now the plummer is involved and we reviewed the plan and his is in progress. Sometimes I feel so lazy. I sit down, show drawing, discuss improvements and then.

"Okay all, lets get it done - what's your estimate?" He said, two days to finish. Then all we have left is sort and wash the gravel. That will be Saturday so that we have 4 or 5 people available.

By the way - is it okay if I refuse to touch the pea gravel - I think it will rough up my hands....

What I have is two screens - the first is really heavy duty and it is to remove anything larger than 3/8 inch - the second one is used to filter out anything less than 1/8 inch. The plan is the a person throws a shovel full of gravel on the top one while another washes it - the washing forces the smaller threw the screen to the second screen while the larger stuff rolls off. The person with the power washer continues to spray the gravel, getting rid of the smaller stuff only leaving the good stuff behind, which is scooped up and put in beds - all clean and sorted.

I am think three to four people should be able to get it done fairly rapidly. The best job to me is the guy with the power washer - looks like the job for the President to me.

My reasoning is this - since the power washer does the washing - I will be able to honestly say "I washed my own gravel" - right?! I mean people are saying you really aren't a APer until you wash your own gravel so I figure this should fullfill the requirements...

Very interesting Blog.

Maybe just having two grids in a wood channel where the water flows like the gold searching in south america. It could possibly work and be reused with the next system. And would be a bit less tiring for the guy holding the sieve.
have a good washing day

Amacafish,
So, someone tosses in gravel, washer pushes it along, fines fall out in pile 1, good stuff falls into pile 2, big stuff runs out the end? Not bad..

CRTD,
My cousin has a saying: "Manual labor fascinates me: I can watch it for hours." *grin*

It works like as you say, but you still can have the pleasure of watching the guy shovelling the stuff!!
I found out that pleasure when I became assistant manager (computer stuff, heater and coffee machine) from basic worker (rain, no coffee and been bossed around by little chief)
So lets give all our support to CRTD workers for tomorrow as they will become real AP guys without a system.

Don't feel sorry for the workers. Those who have space and most likely will duplicate what we are doing have positioned themselves to work in the construction of the system. It was pretty interesting watch this happen. First day before anyone really knew what I was up to - basic laborers were digging holes and putting in the post - the next day after I explained the system, our most knowledgable second tier people were doing the posts and finishing the construction....

I don't assign workers - I am sure our general manager had his ear bent that evening...

One of the things I really love about here is how eager people are to pick up new technologies.

No one will be holding the sieves - you would have to look like the Incredible Hulk to do so - 1 meter by 2 meters for each all framed, etc. We are talking serious screening here.

The idea is that the first screen which is tough enough to walk on will be nailed to two posts set at a 45% angle. A worker throws shovel fulls of material at the screen and the finer stuff goes through and the coarse stuff rolls down to a pile to be used in the walk ways.

The stuff that fails through lands in a secondary screen and is washed with the power washer which causes the small stuff (and dirt) to pass through, leaving clean gravel on the secondary screen. This is scooped up and put on the grow beds.

Should work well. This is how we screen dirt for the nursery too as well as for mixing concrete - except we only have one screen in this situation.

It still is a lot of work, but it won't be that bad when you have a lot of helpers. Besides, we always use youngsters to throw the gravel instead of us broken down old geezers...

Here is a picture with a few of the grow beds in place - you can see the fish tanks above - there is a sump below.

The wood used for the saddles by the way is corteza - of the same family as Ipe. It is so hard that is has the same fire rating as steel and concrete. Also, it doesn't tend to be effected by water or weather. We harvested from the fincas so it was just the cost of labor.

I know you have a wonderful climate and all... but tell me, does Costa Rica import a lot of food or is most locally grown? Just wondering about the commercial possibilities for small businesses/farmers in Costa Rica using aquaponics on a wider scale... If its cheap enough to do, would you consider starting a commercial operation and training facility to spread the AP word? Sort of like a AP missionary... geez, its starting to sound like this is a cult... didn't mean it that way though.

The AP cult of good health and clean produce... not sure many ppl would find fault, unless we invented an AP god resurrected in human form, who does all the nasty stereotypical cult things...
Maybe big corps would try a smear campaign to try and keep massive old style farming afloat.

Costa Rica is a net exporter of food. There is a lot of local interest - especially since many of the farmers raise fish as well.

Trust me, I don't have to train anyone - I have never seen people so quick to learn something from just seeing it - and then improve on it. My theory is that we get stuck in books and keep wanting to over engineer - they would whack together a quick system and modify till it works.

We will probably go commerical someday with this if it works. Organic foods (or perhaps better said - without a lot of pesticides) are in high demand. But, this is a challenge to due in tropical soils. I figure we need between 3 to 9 months to do a good test. Since we don't have a winter, a full year is not necessary.

Let's see - perhaps this "god" of yours can raise fishies back from the dead... I think that might really take off among the "faithful" - or the unfortunate...

Besides - isn't already an appropriate god - Triton?