Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I wish I could help you but I have no experience with tilapia. The duckweed you see in the above pictures started as a small hand full from a local pond. Growth exploded in July and August. I only had 2 Comets and a wandering leopard frog living in the 2 half barrels. Duckweed expanded way beyond the needs of the gold fish and frog. I put several quart zip lock bags in the freezer for winter food.

If I was to do it over again I wouldn't have any fish or frogs in with the duckweed. I would manage them separately.

Some where and I may be wrong, but I think some readings said something about a 2 to 1 conversion for fish food. I'm guessing it will take a lot of surface area to raise a significant amount of duckweed.

There are a number of folks on this forum that could give you a better idea.

Since you are in Panama and have ideal year round conditions, maybe start small and develop your own local data?

Wish I could help you more but I'm just learning myself.

Well I finally broke down and purchased/downloaded Fusion 5.0.2

http://store.vmware.com/store?Action=Di ... n_US_Brand

This program allows me to run different virtual operating systems on my MacBook Pro.

My first virtual operating system I'll add will be MS System 7.

Does any know of any quirks in System 7 that might present a problem?

What other operating systems do people use for developing data loggers, controllers and or surveillance of their AP systems?

I'm thinking of using the "Blog" function here on BYAP to chronicle my experiences with virtual operating systems.

My first project on the Blog WILL NOT be an AP example. Possibly a large hobby robot project

Any and all comments are very welcomed.

Come to think of it should I Blog it or just start a new thread?

I'd say new thread, the blogging features of the forum seem to be new and not much used of yet.

I also use VMware on this laptop for work, but I'm not on the new version yet. Keep having to restore my screen resolution every time.

Thanks for the suggestion Dave. Maybe a new thread is a better way to go.

I'll call it "Machine Vision Experiments".

At this point it doesn't have anything to do with aquaponics.

BUT in the future maybe it could visually identify deficiencies in plants.

The weather finally started to cooperate so I restarted clearing off the old house.

My better half and I are "discussing" what to do with the resulting area. She wants a 2 car garage and she is listening about having a greenhouse. She also wants a storm shelter. So I'm thinking maybe we can have a hoop house over part of the basement like a pit style greenhouse with the 2 car garage next to it.

Also I need to figure out how to include an underground storm shelter and help save part of the basement for the hoop house over it.

Maybe folks down in "Tornado Alley" and others could help with some designs/advice?

Any and all thoughts would be very welcomed!

We finally got all the grandkids all together in one place at one time. Eventually they wanted to see Grandpa's worms so I decided maybe they would be interested in giving them food and bedding. Food was carrot greens, coffee grounds and leftover cooked broccoli. Bedding was newspaper.

More pics.

Kids watched me clean barn so they saw how much "poop" a horse makes in one day. We've got 3 horses. I tried explaining how worms double in numbers and how many worms it would take to eat up "poop" from just one horse. Asked them how much each of them weighs and how much poop that was. And then how many worms it would take to eat their weight in horse poop.. I think numbers and weights where over their head except for the 10 year old. But they had fun handling the "big" worms and "baby" worms.

I threw an excel sheet together for my own reference. Included is a snap shot of the sheet.

Info came from an Extension fact sheet.

Teach those kids young and teach them right. Good on ya.

Thanks Mr. Bill! It was a lot of fun for me also!

Hey your system is really neat!

Do you have goldfish in the duckweed pond? does that keep the mozies down?

Jayendra,

Don't have much of a system, if fact if you blink you might miss it

I'm thinking you are referring to the duckweed in 2 half barrels? It was only going for about 2 months and yes I did have 2 gold fish in it and a visiting leopard frog. I didn't see any larva but then I wasn't looking either.

I took a look at your pics and amazed at your production.

BTW could you start a thread and describe some of your barrel projects and how you move water around?

Bob

I like the worm bin pictures Bob, we just had our class on worm composting and regular boring composting last night, made me re-commit to starting a worm bin.

I wonder how fast BSF larvae could chew through a horse's poo?

Regarding the basement into garage and greenhouse, maybe you could just set aside an area near the basement wall for the fish operation and the greenhouse/hoophouse could be set up next to the garage instead of over it.

Hi Dave,
How is your Master Gardner program going? How did they present the worm composting portion? I'd be interested in what they had to say.

Didn't think about BSF. Now you did it. You've gone and put another idea in my head I'm going to have to chase down

Thanks for the comment about the greenhouse and garage. I'll give it some thought. We've got some time before we finalize what we are going to do in the long run.

Included some more pics of the tear down. This area of the floor had multiple layers and was a pain to pull up. Bottom layer was rough cut red pine. Next was a layer cross ways of tongue and groove. Next was a layer of plywood and then 2 layers of linoleum. On top of that was a layer of carpeting, which I pulled off last fall so as to expose the wood over the winter.