Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yea some extra ribs perhaps somewhat curved to make sure the top always stays a little peaked to make sure water runs off can go a long way to avoiding a collapse. Otherwise You have to constantly run out with a broom and poke the bottom of the puddle up so it will run off or give up and cut a drain hole in the bottom of the pond and wind up with it draining inside the greenhouse (might be good if you can place a collection barrel under the "pond" and are in need of collecting rain water.)

You're correct about the "broom" concept, and I've experienced that problem with my home system before, however I've got that preempted (sort of, after a fashion) by way of "yet more ex-trampoline parts".

The tramp that is now scattered in fragments around my greenhouse used to have one of those "safety net" cages surrounding it, whose poles were topped with nice big smooth plastic caps. When all is said and done, I'll install one (or more) as a permanent "tent pole" kind of thing to insure the center of the span is the highest point.

I used a couple of those poles today to help me stretch the plastic sheeting across the greenhouse, although I worked until after it was dark so I don't have any new pictures.

Since I've got family coming in from Nashville for Thanksgiving and I don't want the backyard looking like a trash heap, and since I didn't have time to get the trampoline frame segments up and in place today, I'm using as a stop-gap measure 55-gallon drums standing on top of the IBC totes. One is inside (under the plastic sheeting), and the other is outside (on top of the sheeting), and although that may be hard to visualize believe me the dual affect is A) it holds the sheeting up pretty well, while B) keeping the wind from flying it off into the great grand beyond.

I'll have to finish the door assembly, install the tramp segments, drain the totes (I'll explain below) and anchor the greenhouse to them, all after Thanksgiving.

One thing I did today was to fill and add yeast to the totes, so that billions upon billions of those little beasties can do a cleaning job for me that I'd rather not bother with since it is cold outside. It may take awhile, but I'm not in a hurry to get this system populated. Since I'm using totes that used to contain molasses, and since they had considerable residue left behind, I'm back to the tried-and-true game of water+yeast+time making the cleaning job phenomenally easier.

More pictures when I can remember to take them while the sun is up!

Merry Christmas (and/or Boxing Day) to one and all!

I am very blessed, and undeservedly so, and have nothing to really complain about. However, since I'm human, I'm sure I can come up with something minor and self-pitying, so here goes and I'll keep it brief.

The biological father of my youngest daughter (who is obviously adopted, given that lead-in) is a great guy. Truly. My current minor complaint isn't with him at all, nor with any member of our respective families. Quite the contrary! Yesterday on Christmas he drove into town with his wife and baby son (my daughter's half-brother), and stayed with us overnight. Still no complaints.

I was gratified that last night we both seemed to wear out at the same rate because he is almost 6 months older than EXACTLY HALF MY AGE, so what with him being a recently-honorably-discharged Marine, and me being old and overweight, I'm usually the one to tire out first - even if we're all just playing a rousing game of "keeping up with the kids".

My only complaint, strangely, is "Aquaponics"-related, and I'll admit I'm being unfair by casting it in this light. You see, we were looking forward to me giving him the play-by-play this morning on the new aquaponics setup I'm building at the Dallas site, but instead my littlest girl started target-vomiting around 5:30 AM, in the car, just after we'd dropped relatives off at Love Field since they had to be wheels-up and off with the dawn patrol.

At first I thought she just had motion sickness, and my apologies to whomever's random toll-way overlooking Highland Park lawn she ended up chundering in just before sun-up. But alas, no, she's apparently got a virus and is heaving regularly on whatever shedding cycle this bug inflicts.

So I guess she's really the one who should be complaining, not me, but she's three and I haven't let her set up her own user account yet.

So... no further Aquaponics proselytizing was accomplished this holiday season (at least by ME, that is), but all things considered she's doing pretty well, so we're back to me not having anything to complain about. Despite my best attempt.

Merry Christmas, everybody! (I say that without sarcasm.)

Ya gotta have some negative stuff in order to let you really appreciate the good things.

Subtitle: "Things that make you want to slap your own forehead"

Below is a picture of one of the greenhouses (the old one) on my mother's property.



Notice that natural gas meter right next to it?

Well, we didn't for about 33 years, and instead when I was a kid my dad struggled with Kerosene heaters, expensive-to-run electric space heaters, etc. I myself in more recent years kept a propane heater in the greenhouse for use on ultra-cold days, including last year.

But earlier this year I was working on repairing my mother's sprinkler system (not shown in the picture because of the bush, but which is directly above the gas meter) when I had one of those "dawning realization" epiphanies that are embarrassing to even think about. "Hey, wait a minute... If I just ran a gas line TWO FEET...!"

Anyways, that's what we did this year, right before the cold hit. I'll post interior pictures soon, but the gas heater works GREAT!

When I saw the post at first I thought you were going to say something about needing to wash the greenhouse because the plants are stretching to get enough light.
I have a greenhouse roof that needs washing myself.

That greenhouse does indeed look like it needs to be washed, however I'm just thrilled that we've managed to squeeze over 30 years of life out of what was supposedly 15-year fiberglass panels, so I generally try to do as little to them as I can.

This most recent freeze did pop all the seams, however... I'm not sure what caulk/putty was originally used, but it finally gave up, so a week or so ago I had to spend a day resealing the roof and sides. THAT was an adventure, because the greenhouse was obviously not engineered to support my fat backside. There were no mishaps (for once), and I even went ahead and reinforced part of the structure with parts taken from an IBC tote's frame (the top cross-bars), so all is well.

I picked up another IBC tote yesterday, but more importantly last night a buddy invited me over to his house for a rousing round of "finally using the drill press on the trampoline frame parts". Success! I now have the greenhouse-expanding former-trampoline-rim sections ready to use to enlarge my 2nd Dallas setup (as poorly illustrated on the previous page of this thread, or at the link below).

download/file.php?id=61109

I don't have any new pictures as of yet, because the parts and latest tote are still stuffed in my trailer, but hopefully I'll get them installed soon (and for photography purposes, this will hopefully take place before nightfall).

Just ran across a very interesting Craigslist post regarding freely available "spent grain", the contents of which I'll include below in case the post itself expires. I'm also going to cross-post this in the North Texas thread in case anybody in our area wants to take advantage. Looks like the soldier flies and I are going to have some fun this summer! (And possibly mushrooms too, and I'll experiment with using this as direct tilapia feed as well...)
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From: http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/zip/4360962634.html

FREE LIVESTOCK FEED - SPENT GRAIN (Witherspoon Distillery)

Free for the taking - distillers/brewers grain. This is a mixture of corn, barley, rye that is rich in proteins, and low in carbohydrates. The grain is wet. The grain is located in the front of the distillery and may be picked up anytime day or night. If you want to receive regular amounts, then leave us a container or trailer to load it into. We generate about 500 + pounds daily. Please do not take the barrels containing the grain!!!

IT IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVE. THERE IS PLENTY. RIGHT NOW THERE IS OVER 5,000 POUNDS.

Witherspoon Distillery
545 N Cowan Ave
Suite F
Lewisville, Texas 75057

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I'm thinking of parking a few barrels or maybe even an IBC tote with them. I'll let you all know how it goes!

I'm very glad the weather is starting to warm up - these babies need to get out and stretch their fins in a larger tank!

We recently had a series of powerful thunderstorms, but while other parts of the USA were sadly and tragically getting destroyed by tornadoes, I had some storm-related good fortune befall me.

Right at the Frisco/Plano border, just northeast of where the Dallas North Tollway hits 121 (if you're familiar with the area), there's a big field (which I think is planted with wheat this year) just past the Home Depot. Well, as my wife was driving along the service road in the storm, along came this big black heavy plastic tree-planter pot a'rolling under the Hillcrest/121 bridge, crossing traffic right in front of her, and tumbling off into the field where it finally whomped down, upside down, not far from the road.

"Heavy winds", they said.

Later that day on my trip home from work, I spotted it as well, so when I got home my wife and I told each other about it. (Those of you who are married may identify with this.)

I intended to retrieve/claim it if its real owners didn't show up, so I let it sit there for a little over a week and a half - in full view of everyone driving Northeast on 121 or its service road - until ANOTHER storm came through, and flew the planter/pot down to the south end of that field, almost to where it turns into a neighborhood. And that's where it was a few days later when the ground had dried off enough for me to grab it.



It was manufactured with drainage holes around the base, and had a small forklift-iinspired gash in the base that I was able to close with my heat gun and sections cut from a plastic milk jug, but it is now holding water nicely because I draped it with an old leftover Intex pool. It currently has a single big goldfish living in it, getting it ready for my tilapia kids, and I'll post a picture of its current state after I pretty it up and cut away the excess pool liner.

Unless you've been living under a rock or on Mars recently, you may have noticed that the economy is in trouble, and money is tight. (Or as they say on Twitter, #Duh!)

Because of this, I am scaling back my grandiose plans and am selling my big tanks. I'm not getting out of aquaponics - perish the thought! - but rather I am going to concentrate on using just IBCs and the occasional Intex pool.

Here's what I'm letting go, so if any of this interests you please contact me so we can bargain and/or barter:

* Two 500 gallon vertical tanks, one of which has a bottom-drain base port
* A 450(ish) gallon vertical conical-bottom tank, with metal stand. The stand is currently being repaired and reinforced.
* A 300 gallon horizontal tank (it may still have metal "travel straps/anchors" on it -- I will have to check because I don’t remember)
* A 1000 gallon vertical tank (blue), with a broken base (forklift damage) that I’m in the middle of repairing. I'll sell it unrepaired or repaired, although obviously I'll want more for it if I have to complete the repairs beforehand.

Pictures of some of these area scattered through this thread, including at the very beginning: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=12285

I was looking for something to make my setups a bit more visually appealing, and stumbled across http://universalrocks.com in Garland, TX. And by "stumbled across" I mean I literally didn't know they existed until I pulled up in front of their establishment, which I put down to a "Thank you, God!" type of circumstance.

The owner is a very friendly AUSTRALIAN (imagine that!) named Stuart, and while giving me a tour of his show room, I explained why I was looking, i.e. the whole "Aquaponics" thing.

Stuart suddenly looked like he had a blinding flash of insight, and said something like "Ya know, I've got something you might be able to use... C'mere!" and he leads to where they've got equipment stored. I was stunned. Normally I have to actually ask for things (and I wasn't even THERE for that), but he beats me to the punch and just offers to let me take four old tanks that he'd had for a number of years.

Two of them are big IBC-holding spill catchment tanks, which have only held debris and mosquitoes for as long as anyone remembers, and the other two are these oddly-shaped (lots of right-angles) things that I believe were planters, but which have been stored upside-down in the catchment tanks. The only thing with those were they'd become home to a lot of fire ants, but hey - we won.

Stuart also gave me another two small "pallet-like" catchment things - they're strapped on top of my car in the final picture below.

The broken catchment tank in its native environment:


The unbroken catchment tank, still loose in the wild before we cornered and captured it:


Caught, field-dressed, and being hauled home:

Thank god for the Aussies!!! What a find - AP pickers dream

I'm thinking of re-building my system in Frisco, and to some degree I absolutely have to since it is already partially dismantled (long story). This is the one with the IBC buried in my back yard, in which I have, for at least the last two years, grown tilapia until they are large enough to eat - at which time I typically do something boneheaded and accidentally kill off all my adults. This year was no exception, and unlike last year I didn't even have the neighbor's kid to share the blame with.

Now I'm planning for the tank in the ground to become simply a sump - or a sump with catfish in it - and I'll have an above-ground IBC serving as a tilapia grow-out tank.

One of the decisions left to make is how to best get water from the sump to the fish tank. I could use a water pump as usual (Duh!) although my best one is not submersible, leaving me with a possible priming issue, OR - and this is the what I think I'll experiment with - I could put in an air lift.

I have a blower I took off a hot tub that moves a LOT of air - I recently experimented with piping it straight into our pool to see how well it works, and it looks like it would probably beat the fish to death if I did the same thing in a tote (unless I diverted off most of the air). But it would probably power an air lift column quite nicely.

I really have no idea, however, and I dread the idea of putting together an impressively large air lift from my sump pump to my fish tank only to have it not work due to pilot error on my part.

Can anyone point me to what they consider the best resource for constructing air lifts? Or if you've got personal experience to share, I'd love some tips and guidance. It seems pretty straightforward, but knowing ME, I'm wary about assuming such a thing...