Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello all.

As I've stated before, I am a landscaper gardener, and have sold my bounty before. I recently put some information out there about some plans to build a small/medium output backyard raft system to the tune of 200 holes a week varied between Bak Choi, and various fast growing greens. I've received now 3 seperate requests to set-up shop at some of the markets here in AZ, and a neighborhood chinese restaurant. I said before the markets here are hungry for fresh homegrown produce here. I've also been approached about microgreens and sprouts..

I plan on building 60ft x 4ft 12" deep. to start
So.. My costs? Keep in mind I already have all the plumbing parts, most of the plywood and most of the 24" steel stakes

Here's my layout in all my ignorance.

Liner
$350
Fish
$200
Plywood (maybe)
$125
Hoophouse 10ft sticks of 3/4 in pvc slid over driven stakes and I have the plastic 6mil to cover it, and the plumbers tape/brackets to secure.
$250
Foam Sheets 1.5in 4x8 $15 each
$150
Stakes
$50 (maybe)
Pumps Hoses (air pump 6 port manifold and 800GPH pump)
1 ton lava rock
$50 at pioneer sand


$1175 USD give or take a couple hundred lol.
This is around what it will cost just to get started.

I'm not really wanting to pour big $$ in yet until I see some turn-around. Ie.. bigger pumps etc.. I know Rhiba up the street sells like hotcakes fresh off the griddle. They started big and wished they had started smaller.

I'll be cruzing till summer where I hit a 120degree brick wall. I found a couple hydroponics 1/2hp chillers for $500 a piece.

Scott

Input?

If you're planning floating raft... hwat's the ton of lava rock for???

If you want to harvest 200 holes per week... then you'll need at least 1200 holes... have you factored that amount in???

And 200 plants per week... @ $1/per plant proft... is only $200/week...

Thanks Rup,
I have been watching your yard, and that greenhouse system you set up for quite some time. Amazing. You are definitely one with some info! Kind of my aquaponics hero you are.

I was going to space the seedlings tighter per raft, then step up to full spacing when they hit X size, knowing all will not grow there will be extras (might sell seedlings also). There are a few vendors that do well off seedlings alone. I was also considering increasing the run to 80' as well. The specs are not set in stone, I'm loosey goosey in the set-up dept.

I'm sure the 200 a week mark is light, and this is just a pilot system which will probably grow in size constantly. We'll see how the demand holds/increases (hopefully)

I was planning on using the lava as bio-filter media or switching to BioBalls/Misc Media for the nitrification process to party. I have a 275IBC cleaned and ready for that. I have a 55gal white tank for a swirl/solids removal.

I'm not going to waste peoples time and draw some paintbrush pics to post here of my system ideas, DWC, IBC, Swirl Filter etc.. We know right? I'll just post pics when I get it done, hopefully by May.

I'm Scott not from OZ lol. Our currency is different than yours. It spends different on veges. The people love options and natural. I know organic growers raping communities @ 5 bucks a head, but people will pay bacause the store produce taste like crap or taste like nothing at all. We have had a huge population growth here in the "Valley of the Sun" and and not that many local farms. They were all made subdivisions lol (I'm not kidding). Now we have all these people in this concrete jungle and nothing good to eat. It's becoming a revolution here. There are 4 times as many Farmer markets here today as there was 3 years ago. I'll get $2 or more USD each. I'm not looking to make a living off this, I own a landscape company. When we finaly move I'll be looking to sell the landscape co and just farm. I am conservative and take one step at a time. I would be waiting on this raft but I am being asked.
The plan for the last three years is to move June of '13 to Prescott to start a mini-ranch Aqua/Hydro will most definitely be a part of it now. I was originally a "dirty" farmer lol. I've got 18 more months to "become" a commercial grower, I've been studying for the last 3 years, now it's time to put it to use. My IBC systems are working as designed, and the food is wonderful. I'm getting the feeling the time is now to get into this revolution (feeling rushed)..

And If I want to charge the best local prices, Scottsdale is 15min up the freeway. That's where the "1%" live lol, and they'll pay.

Thanks and if I'm off on the "rock box" then help out. I was thinking about cut up PVC or whathaveya?


Scott

275 IBC's....

Yep, that'll act as a fair bio-filter....

The "farmers markets" concept certainly seems to be exploding... and people seem prepared to pay good prices....

If you've got a day job to pay the day to day bills... then heck, why not give it a go...

Remember though, if you ultimately want to scale up... and pay yourself... then even @ $2/plant... that's probably a few plants....

Sorry 1000L 275Gal tote for the media.

Yessir not selling the business for at least 2 years. I am very cautions. Until I've got a decent sustainable market share, I'll be Landscaping lol.

I'll prob scale up as soon as comfort/market demand dictates. Starting small is how I roll lol.. I just saw Bak Choi @ target for 3.69 each on BTW..

Scott

Curious to see how this goes for you, Scott. Lots of luck. Please, please keep us posted, preferrably with hard data on your commercial interests in the world of aquaponics.

Ohhhhhnooooo Mr Bill LMAO!!!! noone young knows who Mr Bill is!!


Thanks, I'm curious as well! We have spent the last several years working on a sustainable mini ranch plan for the Prescott(valley), Chino Valley area. Its avg 17f cooler there. We have scorching heat in Phoenix, and have a 2 way consideration. Either remain in the heat and run shade/chillers, or move up north and run a heater a couple months a year. Today is going to be 80f here, perfect...

Since house prices have fallen dramatically here, we were also considering starting a small mini ranch here with remote monitoring (we have grown kids that will run down here), then build up north.


I am a firm believer in not taking loans if you want to start a business. Trust me it would be nice to have all the money up front. If you do, you spend years under the debt load, production is forced prematurely, and from what I see, typically that saps all of your passion and turns it into stress. I also believe when you use your own dollars, you "own" your project and its success is deeper inside. That being said, positioning yourself for success is crucial. This means lowering you own debt load/income requirements. We are just about completely debt free, and live very well within our means. I'm not one to criticize, but when I see folks come in asking about starting commercial systems without systems or farming/gardening experience, I think to myself "Really?" Farming/Gardening is not that easy lol. Its hard work, and takes years of experience and research/learning, and these people haven't done a lick of it. This is what gives me that nauseous feeling inside, like here goes the neighborhood lol.

Example:
I have a friend who seems to mimick what I do in the garden, but without the research or application of that information. He has a nice greenhouse now, and a container garden. All I hear from his wife is "We never eat anything out of the garden, and he spend hours out there!" I admit his layout is nicer than mine, but we eat, and they don't. We acutally donate seedlings to full plants to them. Growing food is a science that not enough people put enough effort into.

I understand peoples enthusiam for aquaponics, and it's holy grail status right now, hell I'm addicted as well, but I spent 12 months researching just a small IBC system before I did anything. And I still don't know shizz.. (but I plan to lol)


BTW, for everyone who's doin it, keep on keepin on! Thanks for sharing all your wonderful ideas, and knowledge. I spend my life unselfishly helping others, this mindset helps the world to be a better place. I promise to do my part.

Scott

Scott just remember there is a huge markup at the store for fresh (even packaged) veggies. The price that you see at the store is not what you can actually get for them as a part time farmer. Yes you might actually be able to get that price or higher at a farmers market but then you will likely also have waste, and the cost of the table at the farmers market, as well as other overhead costs. all of that eats into your profit margin.

it's good to see other people with the same growth rate approximations as the ones i've seen. 6 week cycles are to be expected for most of the leafy stuff.

if you're looking to do the raft system you'd use the dow blueboard for rafts is presume, cut into 2ft X 4ft sections. on each one of these sections you can fit about 28 holes per raft section and still give each head enough space to grow to full potential. if you were looking to do a lettuce mix... grow different kinds of lettuce then bag it up, you could put more holes onto the raft, which reduces the amount of individual space for each head, but since you're not selling by the head, you're seling by max volume per raft, 36 holes per raft will squeeze the heads closer together, but wont completely deform the heads from competition for sunlight.

also in AZ your growth rates will be slightly faster than 6 weeks per cycle if the sun is a constant as it's rumored to be out your way... where i was in hawaii, the sun fell behind rain cloud just about every day at 4, and then fell behind the mountains... even on completely clear days we lost 2 hours of direct sunlight because of the mountain... so with full sunlight all day, the possibility for an increased growth rates exceeding 6 weeks are possible... you may be even pushing 5 weeks, but i'd aim for 6 just to be on the safe side.

what you could do for the extremely hot days is put the troughs into hoop houses with a greenhouse film that is translucent enough to block some of the suns rays, but allow enough for growth, and then put up a crude mister system to cool the hoop houses down... it'll raise the consts of construction and electricity a bit, but it's the lesser of 2 evils.. either pay the little extra to have a crop, or sit back and watch as your crop wilts under the heat... above 80 degrees F lettuce really begins to suffer from the heat...

I'm not going to invest in the blue board for a system thats going to be running for 15-20 months at most. I'll invest in the blue once up north. We'll probably go 32 a 2x4 raft, seems pretty common.

As far a hoop house, I've got 2 bolts of 75% shade for scortching summers and I've already got the brass mist heads to tap into pvc. My fiance actually came up with the mister idea to cool. Sort of evap cooling concept with slow moving fans. We've seen it used on local cattle farms.

The steel stakes were going to use support the raft will allow me to slide over and bend the 10' pvc, then I intend to secure with plumbers tape or the likes from end to end.

I'm all about the frugal.

Were also intending on selling clamshells of dill, cilantro, tarragon, sage. All of which are expensive or limited quantities. Also possibly microgreens/sprouts.I have a brilliant fiance to manage all of the logistics/organization/books. She already does this for our other business.

Like I have mentioned, my source of income is the landscaping/gardening business, and this is only to subsidize our income until we can full swing it, be it 2 years, 4 years or whenever.

This is something I've been working toward for several years already. AP is just a different format that we found. I'm a farmer at heart, always been always will be. I grow things for a living and your my paycheck depends on the skill set that includes caring for green things. Knowledge is king followed by monumental effort.

Flexibility in direction, research, and budget are my main considerations. I am dedicated to not giving Aquaponics a bad name. I don't have unreal fairy tale expectations. I have no intentions of becoming a millionaire, just a responsible farmer. Shouldn't we all?

Just make sure your foam is dense enough, the foam boards we used in our trial was a bit light and there was very little strength in it.. We made a harvester to pick up the large sheets.



Make sure you paint the foam, UV degrades it quickly.

we cut them into 2ft X 4ft sections... reduced the weight and reduced breakage.

Thanks for the input folks. Still researching. I have a simple design question. I was considering using the raft bed for the media, fish, and the rafts. Hear me out. If you take some sand and give the slightest incline with a small hallowed area in the center (so the fish poop settles and is drawn down to the drain in the end.) It's pumped to a elevated swirl filter at the end to remove the solids. Then the water flows from the swirl filter to the media at the end of the raft. After the media the fish, after the fish, the veges.. I read some novels when I served in the Navy by Richard Marcinko he used to say "Keep it simple stupid." I base my life on this principle. I know its better to put the fish before the media, however, the poop needs to be able to be pulled for the system. I plan on having enough turn around with the water to make it matter less.

What do you think?

Scott

Your raft beds will require you to filter out the bulk of the solids... before entering the raft beds....

Why not put a media filled grow bed between the fish tank and raft beds... and use it not only for filtration...but to grow some plants in as well...

Funny you should mentioned that. We have discussed this already. I have an IBC cut at the very top. Was considering using that for a media grow bed. We got the idea from OutbackOzzie's very filled up IBC's. No reason to waste grow space right? I am trying to keep the piping down to eliminate clogged pipes. Considering the extreme summer heat here, the less time the water spends in pipes the better. I was going to run the uptake through the raft as well, all the way to the swirl. This is the reason for the media being in the raft bed.

Scott