Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here is where you can get a lot of low cost DIY Solar Thermal panel information:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Wa ... SolarWater

If you can build your solar thermal system on a slope, you can use thermosiphoning so you don't need a pump or electricity to move your water from the solar thermal panels to the thermal storage tank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosiphon

Thermosiphons are not drainback systems, so if you thermosiphon you want to use glycol as your working fluid (or use water and antifreeze). The solar thermal panels can raise the water in the thermal tank up to 180 F. This heat is transferred to the fish tank with a copper tube heat exchanger.

So you will need some way to shut off the heat exchanger that takes the heat from the thermal tank that into the fish tank so you don't cook your fish.

Maybe some sort of wax piston thing that raises the heat exchanger out of the fish tank water when it gets too hot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_motor

Oops!

Looks like this idea has now been "disclosed", and can NEVER BE PATENTED!

But, it would be really cool if you can get it to work, market it, and make a profit.

Or just sell the plans for the idea on the internet, or even give it away for free.

FreemanG,

Yes, we recommend painting PVC if UV is a concern, or applying tape where the greenhouse plastic contacts the PVC due to PVC outgassing chlorine that slowly destroys the greenhouse plastic.

I looked at Shipito, and the shipping cost to Australia still doubles the price of the product. I would rather manufacture locally anyway, but thanks for the information, it is probably the best price I have seen.

Tom77,

You tell the patent holder that your house is "Prior Art", which invalidates his patent, as his idea is not new, novel, or inventive.

So the patent holder is now "on the hook", and he needs to pay you to shut up about it, or else he will lose his patent.

The need for electricity is the greatest problem with Aquaponics.

For my system, I put the pumps into the media beds and NFT on a timer, not a bell siphon. The pumps were backed up by 3 Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) like you use on your computer, daisy chained together. This gave me a day or so of no electricity and keeping the pumps going.

For the air supply, I got an AC air compressor and a second DC air compressor. My son is an electrical engineer, and helped me set up a relay switch that would turn on the DC compressor when the AC lost power. It used a plug in cell phone charger to keep the relay open. When the AC power went out, the cell phone charger quit working, which closed the relay switch and got the DC compressor working. This gave me about 3 days of air before things started dying.

For off the grid, I guess solar panels, marine batteries, and using some type of lightweight airlift system or pump with venturi openings in the water line - so you move water and aerate at the same time. The solar panels and batteries costs money, which keeps Aquaponics out of the hands of poor people that need it.

I don't see a good solution if there is no electricity at all.

The lack of electricity is what is keeping Aquaponics from being used in the Third world, which is where it is needed the most.

Maybe Monsanto can come up with some weird GMO creature that pumps water uphill and farts oxygen, all while eating fish poop. Nah, that would actually help people.

The more you post the more respect I gain for you!
I take back most of what I said, however do still believe you should get the hubs manufactured as a moulded single piece design out of uv grade plastic
It would be far less labour intensive for you and look very professional

Tilapia are a perfect fish other than the temp requirements. A big downside of naturalizing tilapia to cope with colder water is that they would become invasive in more regions than now.

Their patent is worthless, since this solution was already published in various youtube videos going back for at least 3 years. They know this very well and didn't inform the patent bureau about these videos, hence obtained the patent illegal since it is one of the rules of the patent bureaus that the product has never been published anywhere before.

The fact that they put all these threats on their website only confirms their lack of sureness about the legal strength of their patent claim.

I will build one soon with "their design" and will happily notefy them of my infringement on "their patent". These guys stole the idea themselves from one of these previous videos. Screw them!

Any links to the videos you're talking about Domani?

This thread is interesting, the pictures linked look similar:

http://www.greenpowertalk.org/archive/i ... 13009.html

Domani,

I don't know anybody that has a patent in Thailand, so you can build anything you like there.

You have a good point about the YouTube videos. There is some sort of Destiny Survival video that is similar in using 4" PVC pipe, but the video describes an idea that functions "as a hub", with pins on either side of the pipe wall to keep the struts from moving in or out. This same concept has been patented in the UK and elsewhere, it is not new.

What is different is our idea is that it is a separate locking collar that "surrounds a hub." It is not a hub. It can work as an addition to any hub that is already out there.

The NZ patent examiner told me there was a Japanese patent that was similar, but used a cover plate that locked the center hub to the outer collar. I had to specify that no plate was needed, and that the outer collar could move independently of the central hub.

It all comes down to the legal claims at the end of the patent, which reference the specification, drawings, and descriptions stated in the first part of the patent. The claims are where the rubber hits the road. The claims are what defends you in a court of law.

You would not believe the crappy claims that patent attorneys are getting away with. One geodesic hub design was the same tired round pipe with flanges on it, yet he got a patent by claiming that the flanges were thinner in the middle, and thicker on the ends. I don't think that patent is worth the paper it is written on, and it was issued in the USA.

Australia has had a history of loose patent rules, especially with the design patents. Some people have patented obviously ridiculous concepts in Australia, just to make a point that a patent can be just garbage.

It is all due to the huge patent backlog in Australia, and the lack of good qualified patent examiners.

If you want to do something positive, just "out innovate" everyone else.

There is a fellow near us in Tennessee that develops all of the electronic security for sweeping electronic bugs from sensitive areas. His inventions are used by the US Secret Service for sweeping the US President's Oval office from spying.

He said that a patent is worthless to him. By the time he could get one issued, the technology has changed, and it is obsolete. He just gets a provisional patent every year, so he can put "Patent Pending" on his inventions to keep the scavengers away.

So yes, keep creating new things.

If you have a video of something that invalidates what I have, then I am interested.

But Patent examiners do review YouTube, magazines, as well as all patents in every country in the world, and I have already been awarded this patent in 2 countries.

Please send us a link if you can find it. And thanks for your help.

John

Wow, that is very close. But it is still lacking one detail, so I am OK.

Also, a picture is not a specification. It would have to disclose how it works to affect a patent.

And, it should be sold to the public, or have some greater disclosure than a single picture.

And, I invented prior to his date of publication of Nov 2010, and have proof of my prior date. The US was "first to invent", not first to file before the America Invents act. I have both, first to invent, and first to file.

Not to be cocky or anything. Keep looking, but your real search begins with the US Patent and Trade Office search. You can do that online as well.

If you can do your own patent searches, you are 90% there to getting your idea patented.

If I can help you in understanding the Patent process, let me know.

John

That is why you use a solids lifting outlet patent no 96554375 * to keep the tank clean.

* Actual truth may be different than depicted.

That's good, must be a possible future patent in the making considering the very high number and actual truth.


Ron, what I hope, with all of this banter, is to encourage people to use the patent process to protect their ideas, and to create jobs in their own countries.

Too many good ideas are stolen because someone thought they could not patent their idea, as it was too expensive.

Here is how to get a patent "on the cheap."

Go to a good site to understand the patent process, like this one in the USA:

http://www.fishiplaw.com/resources/strategic-patenting

Do a full search on the USPTO site. This will take 6 months of your spare time, but will introduce you to how patents are worded.

Write a preliminary specification, abstract, description, drawings and claims. This took me 3-4 months.

File a Provisional patent with this information, this will give you protection for one full year from anyone stealing your idea, even if you can't really write a patent.

Take your Provisional patent to a good patent attorney or examiner. Ask what they charge per hour, then ask to sit with them while they work. You should watch everything they do if they are charging you $150 an hour. Mostly, they need to re-write your claims - I have a degree in Pre-Law, but no matter what you know, a good patent attorney is the only real solution to writing effective claims.

For a full patent, start to finish, a patent attorney will charge you $15,000 to $25,000. If you file everything yourself, and use them to overview your work, you can cut this down to 2-3 thousand or less.

File your Utility Patent by yourself with the USPTO. They have an electronic digital certificate, notarized statements, the whole works - that you have to use. If a lawyer can do it, so can you.

The US Examiner will come back around 18 months after you file. You have up to 1 year to file in other countries under the Paris Convention, so you may not know if you are going to win in the US before you run out of time elsewhere.

Your relationship with the examiner is not as an adversary, but as someone that can help you. And frankly, patent examiners hate attorneys because lawyers always drag it out to get more money out of their client. That is why there is a backlog in every country.

If you file yourself, pro se, the examiners are much more helpful. Ask them what the best solution is, and they will help you get your patent so it does not infringe anyone else. They will even re-write your claims for you to make them more effective. The patent examiner knows more than any patent attorney you can find.

All total, I think my fees were around $1,200 for filing in the US, around $500-$1000 or so each for NZ, Australia, and the UK.

It is not that hard. The biggest hurdle is the patent search, you will have to live and breathe it for several months to make certain you have a novel and inventive idea. If you have any legal training, that is a help.

But once you crack how to do a patent, you can do it repeatedly.

If you have ideas coming out of your brain at night, don't think you are too small to succeed at this. You can do it. The big guys want to keep you out of the patenting process.

It really hurts to see someone's idea stolen by the Chinese and dumped on us at Walmart.

And with Aquaponics, there are so, so, so many opportunities for new ideas. Go for it.

John

When I have the time for it, I'll retrieve some of those videos and post the links. Right now my priorities are elsewhere. But a good search on the tube and the web will quickly reveal many, many similar solutions.

Point is, there is hardly anything really new invented or developed. Some take a mix of ideas of others and call it a new invention, run for a patent in the believe they can lock in future profits and then guard that patent like a hawk for infringements.

If a patent is really interesting for others (the big guys) they simply wait until it expires and then take it to the market themselves, blowing away any small timer that might still try to hold on to his patent. There are literally thousands of examples of this around.

Why not see your mind child as a gift to the world and be satisfied with the mental achievement of it? It lasts longer and is less stressful.

My 10 cents.

If you have a novel idea, patent it. That means that you can decide how it is licensed. If yo have ever been a part of the website Instructables, you can see how there are different levels of sharing. Everything from open source, ie my Instructable on how to make soda, to this is going to be patented, so no copies, like the 3d printer. Though there are now open source versions of the 3d printer...