Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just a side note: when we raised worm commercially we used 5 gallon pails stacked on pallets. There would be a sheet of plywood between layers and they would be stacked 5 high. The whole thing would be moved by a pallet jact to bring into the processing area. Once a week, each pail was emptied onto a three tier sifter. Larger worms and particles would go off top tier, get mixed with fresh feed and dirt and put back on the pallet. Second tier was normally finer material and the worm eggs. This would get run through a slight water trough to seperate the eggs, which would go into an incubator. The final tier were the worm castings and very fine compost. Came out like black rice. This got baged and palletized for sale to garden centers. It would take us about a month to fill a tractor trailer with worm casting. The worms themselves went to bait stores in the region.

It was a lot of fun and I learned a ton, but the shipping costs ate so much into the margin that it became more hobby than business.

Not everyone is a juice fan... but green juice is terrific for us humans... and the resultant 'pulp' is really refined.

Now, on a commercial basis, it would mean you'd need to add green juice to your sales, but, hey!! Diversification is good.

Check your second hand stores for a secondary processor... you don't need a slicer, or any of the 'attachments' , so all you want is to chop stuff up. Or... cheap blenders abound at your local big box store. I got two for my paper making project. They're crap, and I use plenty of water, but a 'screen colander' for a minute, and the excess water would be gone.

Interesting idea Windstone with the 5 gallon pails..

One of the best books I have read over the last few years is 'Organic Growing with Worms' by David Murhpy.

http://books.google.com.au/books/about/ ... JYAAAACAAJ

Murphy comes at vermicomposting mainly from a waste management point of view, and to help farmers ween off petrochemical fertilisers.

Truly a wonderful book filled with many great ideas, including how to build a compost toilet powered by worms, making basic wooden worm bins out of old pallets, through to the larger scale stuff like waste disposal centres powered by worms.. from memory he was a big fan of having a concrete floor washdown area where all waste water runs into a sump tank which is then re-fed to the worms..

http://www.thegreencycler.com/features/

Ok so I was pintresting idea for holders of kitchen scraps for my compost bin and this came up. Now I want to figure out how to make one that is a bit bigger

The garbage disposal idea has more merit than I think it was given. A lot of home built cider presses use one to shred the apples before they are pressed. Perhaps a plunging tool ala Vitamix would reduce the ammount of water needed, or make it not needed at all.

Yeah I like that idea too, I mean it was mine but I like the hand crank and done deal of this. I am sure this is easily done.

I wonder how the barrel blade of a manual (push pull) barrel mower would work to make a large one of these. You could lie a 75lt blue barrel on its side and mount the barrel blade inside with a hand crank to turn.

To start with...imagine there is no way for the scraps to automatically fall out of the barrel. The scraps would just mill around in the barrel getting further chopped. To have automatic evacuation of the scraps you could put slits in the bottom of the barrel slightly larger than you desire particle size. Scraps would then fall through to your desired container or bin once sufficiently chopped up.

How bout a bucket and a shovel that's way I used to use it work well for fruit scrapes
Ps I just had an old bath tub and a half a forty four drum as my worm farms but it was on fruit farm so I had heaps of fruit scrapes and the see from the processing machines

Haven't read the whole thread but I'm excited about finding a quicker way to chop up kitchen scraps for worms without petrol mowers or electric blenders (or manually chopping with shovel and bucket)

How about an old bike frame - and instead of a back wheel, somehow a blade system?
Something like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COCRhSTMDh8

Neat idea, it looks awfully rickety though. Perhaps a good old fashoned apple cider grinder would work well.

what about a hand crank meat grinder cheaper and it should more than do the trick... i am liking this. have like a funnel hopper or something.

A while back I asked an insinkerator rep about this, their reply...

Nice Jisliz

Oh man ... cruising these forums is going to get me in so much trouble with the missus. But I think I need to build one of these. Got the sink, need the disposal unit.

How about a "press" in the catch bucket to remove excess water? Hmmm.

And need to enlarge my worm beds ... fish are eating way more than I expected.