Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That flight galley sure looks good there

Thanks! I think it is going to be a hoot.

I couldn't get a fish to pose, so here's a chicken...

... or chicken galley?

Hey Shelgeyr, glad you are still working on your dreams. I am finally putting those totes you gave me to good use and will be starting up a new thread soon with my new system. (two 1500 gallon fish tanks, 100'x4' of DWC beds and much much more. The ibc totes are daisy chained together togive me 1000 gallons of water storage/sump space

I have had countless setbacks , work is crazy busy, the storms and now the heat...

That april 11 hail storm you have pictures of was actually the second hail storm to hit my house in a 2 week period. That april 11th one brought softball sized hail flying at my house sideways at 70 mph. I still have 7 busted out windows, anything in my back yard was destroyed and of course insurance bought my roof. I was a lucky one. a lot of my neighbors had hail go all the way through the roof.. the decking and it was raining in their living room. every car parked outside on the street lost all its windows and if it was older than a couple of years it was totaled. Anyway. the window installers are price gouging right now so i tried to procrastinate but it's starting to get hot so i had them out to measure today. The new roof should go on next week and i am about to start rebuilding my fence as early as two weeks from now.

the flight galley cracks me up. looking forward to seeing how you use it

brian

Brian, man, you have my sympathy! The hail was - at most - an annoyance up in Frisco, and didn't hit the Dallas house at all.

Speaking of the Dallas location and the fact that you're building a new system, since I'm shutting down operations in Dallas I will end up with a few more spare totes. Please let me know if you want them - they'd be the blue ones from page 9 of this thread.

Good luck with the repairs and thank you very much for the update!

Just for grins, here's my oldest helping me move Tilapia between tanks, a chicken helping herself to bugs in my growbed (and probably tender shoots as well, unfortunately), and my youngest playing with a chicken on the trampoline.

Love them chooks whats the creeper on the fence in the last photo

The creeper is trumpet vine - I used to like it, now I hate it - the stuff has totally gotten out of control!

Edit: It DOES, however, have very pretty orange flowers when in bloom. That's what fooled me into transplanting it from a friend's yard over a decade ago.

It spreads like crazy. If you still want some and are in the DFW area, let me know and you can help yourself to however much you want.

IMPORTANT FREE EQUIPMENT ANNOUNCEMENT for Aquaponics enthusiasts in the DFW (that's "Dallas, Fort Worth") area of Texas!

They're giving away - like in "for free" - all the shade cloth and outdoor carpet used in the Byron Nelson golf tournament in Irving, TX. He has over something like 50,000+ square feet of shade cloth, not counting what I took today, but even though I loaded up my trailer and car I barely made a dent in the mountain of stuff available.

Details: Here's the Craigslist post I answered: http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/zip/5604476276.html

Phone: (831) 998-5922

The guy's name is Anthony, he's very helpful, he works for an environmental non-profit, and they'd much rather people reuse this stuff than it end up in a landfill.

Here's my car and trailer, loaded to the gills, and with the smallest of three pallets stuffed into the trailer (the other two larger pallets are off camera to the right. Notice the huge pile behind me. Perspective doesn't really do this justice - that wall is a good distance behind me. Some of the biggest sheets seemed to be about 10 to 12 feet wide, and 50 to 70 feet long. There's LOTS of smaller segments as well, of course.



Here's a shot of one of the piles of outdoor carpeting - there's another pile and several pallets of another type hidden behind it.



And there's more to come. They haven't even completing taking down all the shade cloth yet - I parked next to a large scaffolding tower that was skinned in the stuff.

I believe Anthony said it needs to all be gone by June 5 (you may want to verify that date - I was pretty tired), and he's had a HUGE response to the Craigslist post, but he was fine with me spreading the word here to all my AP compadres who might be interested.

From what I can tell, aside from "casting shade", it can be used as wind breaks, to hide unsightly equipment, and even as a bio-filter if stuffed in a barrel or tote.

Don't miss this one! Free! Spread the word! Or, of course, grab all you can ASAP...

That's a good deal. Shade cloth around here is about $2 a linear foot in 6 ft wide rolls (that's retail from a box store). Definitely worth getting if you need any in the near future.

Talked it over with my wife, and we decided we're also going to use the shade cloth to create a hail screen for our cars (Brian Cotton, and here I'm thinking of you...) Our HOA (blasted be its name) of course would not let us make it a permanent feature over the driveway, but there's nothing they can do to stop me from putting eye-hooks on the house, one on the fence next to the driveway, and sinking a shank in concrete next to the alley so I can throw up a pole in a moment's notice. My goal is to make a hail screen I can throw into place with 1 to 2 minutes notice, and easily take right back down after a storm.

Just a thought...

man, i really wish i had gotten that carpeting to put under my dwc beds but it is too late for that now i guess. I will definately contact them for shade cloth to protect the grow beds over the summer.

Thanks for the find.

In case you're having a hard time picturing just how much shade cloth is available, here are some pictures of the tournament I found through Google Images, just displaying just part of the total (I couldn't find any pictures of the chain-link fences turned into windscreens, but they abound).

Notice all that green space marked with corporate logos? Those are the smaller-width pieces. The larger sheets, used to provide crowd shade and wrap TV camera towers, don't have anything printed on them.







Please forgive the unavoidable corporate plugs here - I don't play golf, have never worked for the Byron Nelson, and haven't worked for AT&T for years (but admittedly enjoyed it when I did).

Your Texas greenhouse is crying out for shade!

Go!

Enjoy!

(This will probably be my last post on this subject - I plan on returning to the topic of "my system" just as soon as I have anything new to mention about my system.)

Started installing the shade cloth today! Got the biggest section done - the top - from a sheet that's 16 feet wide and apparently about 60 or 70 feet long. I haven't measured the remainder, but it is over the top and touching ground on both ends... When I finish anchoring all the sides I'm going to trim off the excess and do the vertical surfaces as separate panels so I can draw them tight.



I made a run to the dump today - took an entire trailer load - and yet the back yard still looks like I LIVE at the dump... Ah well, projects in progress..

On the eastern downward slope I installed a 10' x 12' tarp to give a small measure of rain protection until the plastic goes back on this Fall...



I'm going to love the additional floorspace - the only worry I have is that I'm not sure if the duckweed will get enough light. We'll find out in the coming weeks, obviously.

I filled up my car today with shade cloth. Thanks hunter.