Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Rininger, your outlook is inspirational in dealing with fish suppliers. I know it doesn't do any good getting upset at delivery companies, but I'd be letting off steam somewhere. I like the direction your'e heading breeding fish for aquaponics. I can't wait to see a million pictures of where you go and what you do this Spring.

We've also been following Brian Cotton down in Texas with his various fish endeavors Here's one of several threads Brian has going on http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=20910
I don't know why I am drawn to fish to the degree I am, but I love everything about them. Of course I would never have gotten far without experts like you setting me in the right direction. My fascination may be great because I spent my life as a trouble shooter working with machines and electricity and I see that I can raise fish with a minimum of wires.

Brian, getting upset about it doesn't really help anyone. If I was pissed at the supplier when I contacted them they could choose not to do anything about making the situation right. They could blame me for wanting them to ship tropical fish in the middle of winter. They could blame me because I wasn't home to sign for the package (and just barely made it in time to get my email in to them before their 3 hour arrive alive guarantee expired). They could choose not to do future business with me if I wanted to do further business with them (Lakeway Tilapia made it clear that they would rather not do business with that type of person and just refund money rather than trying to appease someone who wants to be pissed at them... ) I will wait and see what Tampa Aquaculture does to make things right and if they make an effort I will be happy to continue doing business with them. If they don't make things right I'll choose to take my business someplace else, and either way I'll let anyone who reads any of my threads on any of the forums I'm on know either positive or negative review of doing business with Tampa Aquaculture (but either way the experience dealing with them will benefit how I do business moving forward because eventually I plan to be in a position to sell fingerlings locally, so I will either take on their business model for how to deal with problems or I will use it against them as a reason for people to buy from me in the future)...

Kind of off topic but my old boss Zac told me a story about when he worked as a customer service rep for a motorhome manufacturer. He had a customer who had bought a motorhome and brought it in several times within a few months claiming everything you could imagine was wrong with it. They had done everything they could to fix the perceived problems the guy thought he had to try and make him happy... finally one time he brought it in and was pissed about something and they couldn't do anything to make him happy so the guy was causing a scene. Zac's boss (the owner of the company) comes over and asks them to step in his office to stop causing a scene. Goes through asking the guy what the problem is and what Zac has tried to do to help him. The guy is still complaining non-stop, so the owner says OK I have a solution... he asks the guy how much he paid for his motorhome... the guy tells him, so the owner of the company pulls out his personal checkbook writes the guy a check out of his personal checking account (for $250,000+++) and tells the guy he'll have one of his employees escort him out to the motorhome and collect his personal belongings and then they will drive him down the road to the competitor's place and he can use the check to buy the competition's motorhome because they were done trying to make the guy happy. They "fired" their customer!

I'll have to read up on bcotton's thread... I haven't even read the first post, but I saw crappies and I like it already! I would eventually like to be able to move on to breeding and rearing blue gills, yellow perch, etc. too (not to mention the trout too!) so I have a variety of fish available. I was planning on starting with yellow perch but they didn't survive (shocked the system, too much ammonia too soon, added too many fish at once). I think I have about 3 that survived last I knew but my tank is so filthy right now I can't see them anymore. I think the filter is helping but not quite cleared up yet. I do believe it is already cleaning out my gravel bed quite a bit because my water is actually staying under the gravel now instead of running along the top of the gravel. Last time I put my GoPro in the water it looked terrible so I need to get it cleaned up so I can take a new video of the fish and maybe be able to see if the perch are still alive.

I got the notice a little bit ago that my pond liner got delivered... so maybe tonight I will make the first attempt at lining a bed.

Oh BTW, I'm not sure if I posted it before or not, but the tilapia I had brooding eggs a couple weeks back ate all of the eggs she picked back up after moving, so after about a week I put a male in with her to see if I could get her to spawn again... nothing was really happening so I put a second female in with them and a couple days later I came home to the larger female on her death bed. She had been beat up pretty badly and within a day passed from her injuries. I decided to move the male and the female that had laid the first batch of eggs back to gen pop. That caused the female to get chased around and she got a lot of damage to her fins but seems to be doing OK now so will hopefully heal. Now I have a second female that is brooding eggs. This time I am going to attempt to let them hatch in gen pop then move them after they hatch. If that doesn't work then next time I notice eggs I will try to net the female and strip her eggs out of her mouth and put them in an egg tumbler to try and hatch them instead.

For those who have embarked on the pond liner growbed adventure before me... should I cut the hole in the growbed where I want the drain at before I put the liner in or after? I'm a little worried about ripping the pond liner if I try to cut the hole through the liner, but I just skimmed through JT's thread to see his craftsmanship and he said the easiest way to get liners to lay flat and fold them nicely is to fill the beds half full of water... so should I cut the hole in the bed, place the liner in, fill it half full, fold the liner how it needs to be, secure it, drain the bed then cut the hole in the liner for the bulkhead fittings to sit in?

The other thing I started thinking about with his thread is if I should put the drains on one end of the bed and the supply on the other end of the bed so the water has to travel all the way through the gravel before it drains? Or do I stick with central drains and have two inlets, one on each end of the bed so the water flows from both sides to the middle drain?

I really liked JT's wire shelves for seed starters. I think I'm going to put one of those across the front of the greenhouse up higher where it's not going to block sun from the growbeds and being wire basket won't block sun from the water barrels in the winter..

[quote="rininger85"]For those who have embarked on the pond liner growbed adventure before me... should I cut the hole in the growbed where I want the drain at before I put the liner in or after?

After, take a 1x material cut the hole in it, place it were you want the hole, press down and drill the hole.

I'm a little worried about ripping the pond liner if I try to cut the hole through the liner,

If this is the case, mark the round hole first, in that dia. screw that part thru the liner and into the wood.

but I just skimmed through JT's thread to see his craftsmanship and he said the easiest way to get liners to lay flat and fold them nicely is to fill the beds half full of water... so should I cut the hole in the bed, place the liner in, fill it half full, fold the liner how it needs to be, secure it, drain the bed then cut the hole in the liner for the bulkhead fittings to sit in?

Buy some double faced carpet tape, or glue dots, once you get the liner were you want it, fold it back, use 4-6'' pc of tape to hold in place, or a few glue dots. Works great for holding your Hospital folds together in the corners.

The other thing I started thinking about with his thread is if I should put the drains on one end of the bed and the supply on the other end of the bed so the water has to travel all the way through the gravel before it drains? Or do I stick with central drains and have two inlets, one on each end of the bed so the water flows from both sides to the middle drain?

For filling with narrow beds like yours, run a pipe down the center for even distribution. As for drains depends on how fast you want the beds to drain and the length of the beds.

I decided not to work OT this week, so I came home at lunch time so I could get some time in working on the greenhouse before I had to go get the boy... I managed to get the three biggest beds lined, only the two small ones left to do. I got the drain in the wicking bed. I will finish lining the two small beds once my wife gets home and I will hopefully get the bulkheads installed in the rest of the beds so I can get the plumbing done this weekend.

My liner job probably won't compete with JT's when it comes to the EPDM world folding competition, but it will work.

The one drain I installed the bulkhead for I ended up drilling the hole from the bottom then I pushed down and cut the center of the liner from the top and then trimmed the liner hole so it was slightly smaller than the hole in the plywood. Then I forced the bulkhead through the liner creating a tight seal and then tightened it down.

All of the beds are lined, all of the bulkheads are in. I have temporary standpipes in to make sure there are no leaks... All holding water. Just FYI, once I saw the EPDM after opening it all concerns about ripping it went away... It's tough stuff, but not as thick as I expected 45 mils to be... It isnt terribly difficult to work with, but small beds are more difficult than big beds because there is less room to smooth out the liner.. I started big and worked my way to the small.

Now I need to run to home depot to get plumbing for the drains and supply. I'm going to haul the trailer with me and get a load of topsoil on my way back so I can fill the wicking bed and some more raised beds outside.

It always amazes me what the DIY homeowners will go thru to grow vegetables for the family.

If you would make a True Wicking Bed, with a 3" deep reservoir, 1.8 gals of water per sq/ft of reservoir, 24/7/365.

your liner can be 6-8 mil plastic sheeting.

For most vegetables you only need a 4-6" deep media bed, using a Soil-Less media, weighs a lot less than rocks, which translate to lighter bed construction. For root crops such as carrots, a 5 gal bucket can produce 3-4 lbs. per bucket.

This will give you the 3 principles for growing in any Hydroponic system.

Why?

That sucks about the dead fish. I'm glad they will replace at least those ones though!


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I'll second that...

It's much more than just vegetables to me... That's important as it is so expensive to eat healthy buying food at the grocery store... Much cheaper to just buy junk food... Being able to grow my own veggies is important, I do have a dirt garden every year, but I'm hoping the aquaponics system will produce much more than the dirt garden does. And if I actually manage to keep the greenhouse warm enough to grow year round will be huge. It's a lifestyle for me though, I am doing everything I can with the goal in mind of becoming self sufficient for food, and eventually electricity. I intend to quit my job as soon as I can afford to. If I can become completely self sufficient for food that will save a lot of money at the grocery store which will then allow me to pay off my debt sooner and hopefully be in a position to retire while I'm still young and can enjoy life rather than being a slave to my job.

Rininger, that's exactly how I feel.
Although it might look like slow progress and baby steps in the beginning, when you create a foundation and build on that in the years to come you will pick up speed in your efforts.
I'm 45 now, so I realized what a scam modern society is a lot later in life than you, but I still have the same goals as you. Besides, I plan to live minimum 100 years so there will be plenty of time to enjoy freedom!

But, what I think Old Prospector means is that he feels that we tend to over elaborate our systems.
The same results can be achieved with less effort and investment of time and resources.
While I think he has a point to some extent I also believe that it to a large degree is a question of which philosophy you subscribe to.
Some people like to spend minimum resources up front and save them for later, while others invest more to begin with and then save in the longer run. The basic difference between building it quickly and save resources now knowing that you have to redo a lot of the work or building a strong and long lasting system.

I don't think there is a wrong and right in this question, just different opinions.


Cheers - Jens

Here's a good site to help with that goal (lots of posts worth reading and a good forum with like minded people as well) - http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/

Thanks Jens, I'm not sure about living to be 100... By then most everyone I've known would be dead... Not sure if I would care to live that long. I do have 90 as my target age for my retirement funds though, but I'm hoping to be retired by 50 would be good, so another 40 years of living after that would be good. My maternal grandfather is 89 right now, I don't think he will be around much longer. My fathers maternal grandparents both made it in to their early 90s before they passed, but my fathers paternal grandpa died in his late 60s, one of his kids died by their 60s and the other (my paternal grandpa) has thought he was going to die early like his dad did, but he is 74 now and stays fairly active golfing so hopefully he has a number of years to go yet. My maternal grandma died from breast cancer when she was 69, so you never know what life is going to give you, but that is why I hope to retire young and enjoy the remaining years, however many that is.

I've already been at my job for almost 15 years and I'm only 31 now so another 19 years will be a good run and hopefully I'll have my debt paid off and be able to afford to retire, make what money I need trading from what I can raise or grow at home.

Scotty that blog is a good read, will read some more when I have time thanks