Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Wife had 70 bales delivered to the farm. Took the initiative to ask the farmer if he knew of any IBC tanks or barrels that were free or cheap. He scratched his jaw and finally stated he had 2 - 3000 gallon tanks sitting around at home he might be convinced to let go. Time for me to scratch my jaw and not look too excited.

I took him over to my GH (still unfinished) and told him about the fish tank, growbeds, strawberry towers, and generally about AP.

He wanted one of the old IBC tanks that had the top cut off, a huge hole in the bottom and a cut out on the side. Said he wanted to use it for his "kids" (baby goats) to get away from the weather.

I gave him the tank in good faith that he would hang onto one of the 3000 gallon tanks until I can scrouge up some money. Maybe both of the tanks. Maybe...

It must be karma, the universe telling you to pursue this all the way to fruition.

What are the tanks made of?

Dunno yet CJ. He bought them a few years ago for water storage for a trail ride he was hosting, then they have just been sitting around taking up space.
Nice to know that they have only had water inside, not chemicals.

Be that as it may, if I do get them, they will have to sit around at my place for another year until I get the AP acreage cleared off, leveled and terraced to suit my plan, and I have time to work the plan. Yes, I do have a plan.

Plan at the mo is to get the GH finished and start cycling water through my system.
Worked some more on the GH getting more of the roof put together
Which looks so much better after it's installed
I feel better now

And then I wake up to see this

The kids are excited to see the snow. They run over to the window and say, "Papa, your greenhouse has snow on it, and inside it, and the fishtank has snow on it too."

Bummer

The snow finally melted and things dried out enough not to walk around with 3" of mud on my boots. Only 1" of mud instead. I know because there's a trail through the house. "Hey, who tracked this mud... uh, never mind. Where's the broom?"

Raked around the GH, getting the itch to get this system cycling. Have a neighbor wanting to give me 8-10 fish (bream I think). Yeah, just hang onto them for a little while longer. I'm getting there.

Have two more rafters to put up on the GH, then tie the whole thing down and put just a plastic roof on it. Have to see how large the shadecloth is to see if it'll fit on the sides.

Compost piles are turned. Getting the worm bed containers ready now that the weather has thawed out the rock-hard dirt. Kept adding tasty things to the containers and it kept freezing. Poor worms.

See what a little warmer weather will do? It's only the middle of January. Still not willing to sit around and not do anything. Can't stand to sit still.

An update to show that there isn't anything to update as of yet. Nasty weather, pain and suffering of the body, work, and of course, family has kept me busy or out of service, depending on the level of pain.
Haven't done a thing to the GH.
Digging through some pipe fittings, found a brass spout with a turn valve and figured I'd make a worm barrel based on Steve's design. Have to see if it works for me. Need a screen lid for it though.

Keeping myself off my own problems by watching everyone else's threads. Some great stuff out there.

Mr. Bill, I feel you pain concerning the cold nasty weather. I have been seinig or trying to seine fish for the last month. Tough to seine with ice encased net.

Not sure if it would be possible, what would be really cool (not literally) is if you could run warm water through the pipe GH frame work in the winter. May keep things toasty. Or the weight may collapse it.

Difficult to tell with this crappy phone pic. One inch of ice encases top on this pond. Locking up the seine put out the previous day. Needless to say, seining was postponed.

Not really a viable idea with the water flowing through the GH. One, the fittings and pipes just make a bunch of squares, so the water flow wouldn't actually flow. And two, even if you could make it flow around and around, I believe the heat would dissapate too quickly.

But, on that train of thought, geothermal heating would be great under some floor pavers. I'm not well versed in such things, but sounds like something I'd like to try. Warmth in the winter, cooler temps in the summer, everything helps. As long as it could be sustainable energy/cost efficient so it doesn't kill my wallet.

Dunno, but this is the place to bring up ideas. Hundreds of people all going in the same direction of pushing the envelope in Aquaponics. Cool.

Still working on getting my towers and growbeds created then plumbed in. Working a little at a time. Funds are low. Too many medical bills all at once. Blast. Lots of ideas and ambition, not enough energy, too much painkiller, not enough beer. Work should pick up soon. Have to be optimistic.

Keep plugging along Bill, you will get there. This weather really hasn't been conducive to outside work. Finally today here in MS it was sunny and warm.

Limped out to the GH, stood up a couple of the strawberry towers that I had taken down to do other work. That got my blood flowing, so I fixed them into place, and plumbed in the drains.
Then a neighbor called from work and said he had 6 blue barrels if I wanted them. Drove over to his work, pulled into to the delivery dock and aquired 10 barrels. Strapped them down and carefully drove home with the tailgate down.
Cut one of them lengthwise just to see how it would look. Then cut up a few 2X6's to screw onto the sides. Eventually a 2X6 will wrap all the way around, giving it a "framed in" look.
Thank God for painkiller.

Still have the house and land up for sale if anyone's interested. Aquaponics greenhouse, soon to be cycling... Working on the dirt garden area, pasture land, hardwoods, and a house and barn that I built with my own two hands.

Squeezed in an hours worth of work on the GH and the growbeds. For anyone interested, a 2X4 or 2X6 frame around 4 half barrels makes a 100" long growbed. I ended up making two sets of them, one set of white barrels, one set of blue.

Hey, didn't I say I had to finish the GH first? Couldn't help it. Had the material to build the beds, so ...