Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So if the I/S demensions is 9 1/4" deep, what is the freeboard dimension is it larger?

So, it seems to me that your are buying retail instead of wholesale prices????

they are 2x10 which is actually 1 1/2" x 9 1/4", so it would actually be a little lower than that because I won't fill it all the way to the top of the board so it doesn't overflow.




I don't know of anyplace locally to buy wholesale for this type of stuff... there are a couple of landscape supply places in the area that I can get the pea stone cheap that's why it's only about $38 per yard (actually $24 a yard now that I look at their website), but I don't recall seeing any of the other items locally so I was going off of Amazon and Home Depot per bag prices for the lava rock and hydroton. We do have a couple of new hydroponic stores in the area that I haven't checked out yet... maybe I'll swing in to one of them next time I'm in the area and see if they offer any better prices. It does look like I might be able to get the price of the hydroton down locally... 50L (1.76 cu ft) / $37.95 according to one of their websites.

I didn't realize the landscape place near me has a website with most of their stuff listed now, and I guess I can get red lava rock for $159 / yard locally too it looks like.

Check out expanded shale they use it to make lightweight concrete.
I bought some that was for aquaponics but others have bought theirs from local companies that make lightweight concrete. (This is cheaper)

This shows mine.
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=24884

This is someone else using it.
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... le#p549028

Web4deb uses it.
http://www.expandedshale.com/Products/S ... Shale.aspx

Last post on this page shows it pretty good.
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... &start=300

It is not as heave as stone it is fired like 2,000 degrees to make it expand. This also makes it have holes in it that is good for aquaponics.
Just another choice to check into.

I can't seem to find expanded shale locally either, searched for haydite as well since I saw a reference of expanded shale to haydite and can't find it unless I want to buy it by the bag.

This is the local place that has the biggest variety of stuff to choose from... they have stuff listed under sands and gravels and then some more listed under decorate / MI stone / boulders
http://www.hammondfarms.com/product-cat ... d-gravels/
http://www.hammondfarms.com/product-cat ... -boulders/

here is another but they don't have as much to choose from
http://schaferslandscapesupply.com/

a third... not very good website...
http://www.galebriggs.com/products.php

It's nice to go back and see the beginning of your thread again to remember just how far you've come Mark... I had someone ask me something about my greenhouse build the other day so I sent them a link to my thread and I clicked through looking at the pictures... amazing remembering what I was doing not even a year ago... hopefully a year from now I'll be swimming in fresh produce.

BFG, 54 miles from you, if they want you to set up an account, tell them you only deal in CASH, 99% of wholesalers will deal with anyone offering CASH,

http://www.bfgsupply.com/locations/

MI, is a big place for commercial growers, they all buy wholesale.

Google "greenhouse suppliers in Michigan"

Hmm doesn't look to be much better pricing on their website than what I saw elsewhere. But it did give me the idea and remind me that I have a buddy who works at a commercial greenhouse in Kalamazoo and it looks like BFG has a location in Kalamazoo so I could touch base with him and see if they have a relationship with them to be able to see if he could get better pricing.

It is fun to look back at the build. It is funny how all that work does not seem so bad now.

To get expanded shale local.
Try calling some calling some places that produce cement lots of places usually offer lightweight cement.
They will usually sell you some of their expanded shale. Try to have them just take the top so you don’t get ant limestone.

I've been digging trying to find this discussion about EPDM liners so thought I'd save it here for future reference... I was doubting myself again after ordering my EPDM, which is scheduled to be delivered today BTW, so hopefully I'll have growbeds lined this weekend.





viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14449&hilit=epdm+organic

ugh I just realized I've been off a day all week. Yesterday I was thinking my tilapia would get delivered today so I was thinking I would work from home. Checked my email again last night and tilapia don't get scheduled until tomorrow... thought pond liner was still getting delivered today... look at tracking this morning and it says tomorrow as well.. wth? I wish it was Thursday already I guess.

So what Mil size did you buy for your liner??

Pondgard is 45mil. Sounds like it might not be ideal for getting it to lay nicely in the beds... but hopefully it works and lasts a number of years to come (honestly not sure how long this greenhouse will be operational... I already want something bigger, but I will probably run it at least a few years to learn what I'm doing before I go bigger... I may have to add some larger outdoor tanks before then to run through the summer months if my trout aren't as large as I would like them before harvest).

That's overbuilt, unless your using a roto-tiller in your beds??

The most you needed was 10-15 mils.

DecalsbyJT did some really nice work on his grow beds using EPDM and did well with the folds, you might want to take a look at his thread.

Probably, but I got tired of looking through specs of pond liners to try and figure out what was going to work without spending a lot more or having to read through every MSDS and every process document for how something is made. Seems like most people say you have to have durascrim / ultrascrim to be food safe but found this claiming that it is food safe just doesn't carry the NSF stamp on it and figured it was good enough so I bought it... would have preferred using billboard tarps, $35 for the same amount of liner as I paid $150 for (with shipping)... but they are PVC and all the posts I've read by people who have been around here for a while freak out when you start talking about PVC liners.. I needed to get something and didn't want to spend any more time looking for something, so I put my trust in the post I quoted and will hope for the best.



thanks Scotty, I'll look him up.

I came back from lunch yesterday at about 12:45 and checked the tracking numbers for my Tilapia from Tampa Aquaculture and saw they had been delivered at 10:47 yesterday morning when the tracking had said they wouldn't be delivered until today... so I ran home to get them indoors and get them warmed up because it was only in the 20's here yesterday and Tampa Aquaculture has a 3 hour arrive alive guarantee so if you have any losses you have to email them pictures within the first 3 hours of delivery. I took the fish bag out of the box and first thing I noticed was there was no heat at all coming from the heat pack, it had been completely exhausted (but it spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning in shipping... kind of surprised they ship priority mail instead of overnight but I only had a couple die the last time I ordered from them back in September/October and they had put enough extras in the bag to cover the ones that died so I decided to try again even though it is winter). I started floating the bag in tank water to warm it up but decided I needed to get a count fast because I was running out of time to make a claim. I ordered 50 fish, they shipped 51 fish and 12 of them were DOA and 3 more that died shortly after (could tell they were going to because they just laid on the bottom even though they did move every once in a while). So I have 36 out of the 50 that I ordered from them. I emailed them pics and told them I knew at least 14 were dead at the time and got an email back shortly after saying that something must have gone bad because he had quite a few DOA boxes from this week's shipment, where he claims that in 2016 they had a 99.6% survival rate in shipping... so he said he will replace my order on Monday, I'm not sure if they means he's just replacing the ones that died or if he was shipping a whole new batch... I'm going to hold off and see what he does, then if he does end up replacing the entire order I'll go back and pay for the extras that survived because I don't think he should have to be out a whole new order if most of the ones I received survive... but I will wait until I see what he does first so I can see what their business model is for making things right. I was a little disappointed with the sizes of the ones I got shipped this time. The first order they were all pretty close to the same size, this order there is a huge difference in sizes, so now I know for sure they do not grade their fish... but for the prices I'm OK with that.

here are the survivors last night...



I have not heard anything from Lakeway Tilapia on my order from them yet, but they claim they will not ship Tilapia in the winter until they see the weather will be above a minimum temp the entire trip from their facility to you because they know how much their heat packs can fight off cold to keep the tilapia above a minimum temperature so they don't die, so they have minimum temps for if it will take 1 day, a higher minimum temp if it takes 2 days, even higher if it takes 3 days etc. to reach you. So I may not see an order from them until April for all I know, but they claim that they check temps daily during shipping part of the week and often they will sneak a box through when temps are warm enough so claim it is better to stay in their shipping queue than to wait until temps are warm enough to place the order.