Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Howdy friends!

I came out of retirement and went back to the Internet place where I worked before, yay!

Work for profit for the week is done. Now I can get back to working or around the house projects, except with money!
I'll only post a few of the images of non-AP projects. This project is being done for some chickens we're raising this year.
June-2019-Karaoke-box-Brooder-van-integration-Chicken-pen-Guinea-hen

June-2019-Karaoke-box-Brooder-van-integration-Chicken-pen-Guinea-hen
I've been doing a lot of carpentry for the integration of the Brooder van and karaoke box trailer into the chicken pen. At first it seemed straight forward to build a cage of chicken wire to meet up with the van. I soon realized every curve of the van needed an engineered piece of wood to fit it in and not being able to attach the wood to the van meant each piece needed to be self-supporting.

Chicken-pen-mods-rounded-to-square-type-stuff
Chicken-pen-mods-rounded-to-square-type-stuff. I had a piece of chain link fence which has been used twice before on projects and discarded only to be retrieved again and again and reused. This is well attached and hopefully large predator proof, yeah right, lol!

June-2019-Karaoke-box-Brooder-van-integration-Chicken-pen

Integrating the Brooder Van and Karaoke box trailer into the chicken pen. A whole lotta round to square carpentry. Lots of voids to cover under the van and the trailer. I hope this part is done and I'll move onto the door on the other side of the trailer today. It took all day to figure it all out, but I got it and I'm satisfied it will keep the birds in and foxes out. Unfortunately the whole top is yet to be covered and it is also round! I want to say from now on I'm only going to build square structures, but the reality is Nell and I were both sick when we built the chicken pen and it is what it is and we're glad we did what we did. I have a plan for how to cover the top. I still need to simplify the plan so it takes like one day to do, haha, right?

Taking big pieces of wood and making small pieces. Thank goodness for this miter cut off saw. Not next, but after the door where I'm standing will be the top of the pen. My plan is to layout three lengths of chicken wire in the field and weave the sides together, then drape the combined sections over the sides. This is so we don't have to work up from the bottom as much.

We're also working in the four next to trees gardens we have been building around the house.
June-2019-Blue-Columbines-backyard-garden-patch


June-2019-second-season-peppers-outside-again

Second season peppers are outside again after continuing to fruit all Winter in the greenhouse. I never would have guessed they'd go a second year, so that cool.

June-2019-Fairly-rare-red-white-Columbines-backyard-garden-patch


This morning I used the last of the compost from the rotting hay we got to help warm the outdoor Koi pond three years ago.
June-2019-compost-spread-back-gardens-rock-partitians-added to keep the dogs from nesting in the cool soil under the trees.

June-2019-compost-spread-back-gardens. This bed gets good morning sunlight yet is protected (hopefully) from hail which usually comes from the west.

June-2019-Aquaponics-Rainbow-chard-petunias

The media beds need cleaning after raising 100 Brook trout overloaded the system with fish poop.

June-2019-petunias-aquaponics-upper-media-bed-greenhouse

Tyme-Aquaponics-media-bed

June-2019-Peppers-not-outside-yet-greenhouse. These will be backups if hail does pulverize the plants I already put outside.

June-2019-dirt-bed-first-grapes-3-year growth.

Thanks for reading and looking at our projects.

Have a great weekend

Great recycling project for your chickens

Works a pain at times but money in the pocket always helps

Ive been recovering from injury and I think ive found a job I can do that will get me going again , starting next week

Got some projects that ive had on hold for awhile now due to lack of spare funds.

Thanks for the note Terra. Yes not working doesn't help make us feel better went we're down for the count. It's funny, now that I am working again I want to buy stuff whereas when I was down I wouldn't even look at Amazon. First thing I did last week was buy more parts for the lifted Jeep

Howdy.
I did a bunch of fish moving as well as harvesting the last ten Brook trout. I cleaned both ponds this is the indoor 2600 gallon aquaponics tank:

Scrub-brush-hose-lotta-exercise-bingo!

Hopefully it'll stay clean for a while with only the four four year old trout in the 2600 gallon tank.







Now after cleaning ten big fish I exhausted and can't type, lol!

How are you Brian ?
We have not heart from you for a very long time.

I hope you and your wife are well.

Thanks gnoib, we're doing well. I don't recall if I mentioned that I went back to work, I did. I'm feeling pretty damn good too.
I finally got the air-lift powered cone-bottom RFF installed. It was a workout, and I chased a leak coming from the plumbing I modified coming from the SLO.

I freaked out when I watched my own video because at the very end it dripped. It turns out it isn't worth fussing about. The Koi are doing very well and becoming more friendly every day.
Here is another short video looking at the mess I made.

The big advance was busting a hole through the greenhouse wall for the drain. Now I can gravity drain anything in the fish room, YAY!

It was recommended that I not do a lot of digging, but I think it was worth a little pain for this new drain in the fish house.

Oh man I struggled to get this section of pipe setup properly. I should have used a union, but I didn't have one. When it leaked in two places because the angles weren't quite right, I sawed it off again and added this rubber sleeve to make up for imperfect fit. Plus this gives me a way to take it apart if needed.



Even when I used this new wet set glue it leaked, but not enough to discourage me. I'm keeping an eye on the drip.
The air-lift pump is so effective at this level it acts like a little geyser in the RFF. I'm thinking of ways to contain the water even better. It doesn't seem urgent though, so I'm at ease.

Good to hear from you Brian and I like the progress.

" I'm thinking of ways to contain the water even better"

Maybe place some fibreglass flyscreen over the gusher to contain it a little better and to dissipate the water into finer Oxygen absorbing droplets? Just a thought.

I like that idea Nhibbo, thanks
I was talking with a friend, actually the guy who aimed me at air-lift-pumps to begin with, and he was saying I might try decreasing the air volume. I will try this as well, but I suspect the gurgling comes from that short section of nearly horizontal pipe coming from the SLO. At least I have something to experiment with now, after this project fell by the wayside after the previous failures. I am happy about this success.

Glad everything’s ok Boss, thanks for the update.

Good to hear from you.
Fall will come with a bang this week in my area.
Temps will drop to the lower teens, when that cold front comes in tonight.
Have to winterize the outdoor system today.

Hi Brian,

How are you coping with the big freeze?

We are having the opposite problem atm with temps in mid 40's and rampant bushfires across the entire country. My daughter in Sydney has had a constant bushfire smoke haze for about 6 weeks now. Fortunately here in Melbourne it's only been a few odd days but that was bad enough. Not good for asthmatics.
On the good side, I tried the first of my SP's today. Delicious! I'll be bumping 3 more on the head for New Years Eve entree.
Keep warm, keep well.

Hi Brian, how are you and Nell? I hope we haven't heard from you because you are both feeling great and too busy enjoying life to post. Anyhow there was a time I would follow you daily, and now silent for over 6 months? Please be healthy and stay safe! Some of us AP'ers are better positioned for lockdown than other mere mortals. I hope you are both doing well.

Cheers

Hi Brian, hope you guys are safe and outside the Luna Fire zone.

Does anyone know how to contact Brian? It's been over a year since he posted on this thread and he used to post almost daily. I'm hoping he and Nell are okay!

Howdy Again! 2020 was tough here, as everywhere I'm sure. Since I last posted I got well, got rehired, stayed well, worked for most of 2019 and 2020, covid19 hit. I worked through the first wave, made a bunch of money as the company I worked for treated me very well. We upgraded our heating system with a mini-split air conditioner and heat pump. Sealed our home to make better use of the new bought air. Completely rebuilt our wood heater in the house learned all kinds of new stuff about both systems with a lot of hours of research.

Decided to take a leave from work when too many people started acting like fools and risking the lives of our family. Got bummed out seeing so many nonsensical conspiracy theories being brought forward as if they had an inkling of merit. Wishing and hoping they would have stood up about any of the dozens actual issues facing the working class We did a ton of research into why the government wouldn't give us universal healthcare and stop escalating the killing of Blacks, and found out why the nuts and racists were coming out from under their rocks. None of our friends cared. Disillusioned with mankind I dropped out of facebook and left BYAP, Permaculture and all the fish forums I posted in often. I also stopped taking pictures.

I wasn't discouraged with family and that began a freshened relationship with my 40 year old son. We gave my auto workshop a much needed face-lift. With the money we saved from working we undertook two massive mechanical projects. Timing belt and injection pump rebuild for the 2003 Jetta TDI. After that, I was checking the Jeep diesel for an oil leak and found a huge can of worms which I didn't notice until I pulled the skid plate: CV boots were cracked on both sides, steering had multiple issues and the rack and pinion system was leaking and looser than hell. I ordered axles from a disreputable dealer on ebay which we didn't realize didn't fit until we got the second axle installed

I've been consuming a ton of legal cannabis trying to forget what a horror our political system is. Haha so a few mistakes were made while I had my jeep up on five jack stands in the very comfortable wood heated shop. Oh yeah we used some of the money earned to finally buy a roll up garage door The Jeep was more dismantled than I've had it before with the entire front end off. Much better quality parts were ordered and we finished the Jeep which drives so much better now. Meanwhile I called work and let them know I wasn't going to return to work.

I turned 67 in January and reluctantly looked for something to do in my third retirement. With the support of family I settled on breaking out my jewelry making tools and proceeded to build a silversmith shop in our craft room. I need to brush off rust from tools and my own skill set as it has been over twenty years since I've soldered silver

Amazingly our AP held together since the hundred Brook trout episode. Our five Koi have been moved into the indoor pond and did well in the unheated greenhouse pond. Once the water temperature dropped below 60F they slowed down and we stopped feeding them. Now they are back and hungry and even spunky. They are getting big now after five years I think. The biggest Koi reminds me of a submarine surfacing and it can suck up a lot of food with it's big mouth wide open. I'll of course get more pictures of what the AP looks like now that Spring has sprung. Happily my wife,Nell has taken over the garden and the greenhouse is in full swing. We received 18 inches of snow in the last days of March and it looks like we'll finally have Spring growth after a drought last year.
Sorry I can't recall how to run my image program. I will soon enough.
Love and peace