Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Holy cow, those guys do not screw around, 1 acre and 20 some feet deep, those are lakes and not ponds.
Can you imagine how much water that is. That is about 5 years of rain and snow for us in the South West.
They must have webs between their toes.
My large pond on the farm is about 1/2 acre and max 7 feet deep, it dried out last year and this year again.
Got 2 feet from the last rains into it.

I pretty much decided on the green house 8x12 Grandio Ascent. With the online stuff you have to guess, can not go and kick the tires and take it for a spin.
It looks solid and might with stand the snow load of a normal winter, if we will ever get one again.

$1700 including freight, truck load of 3/4 inch road base, about 300, to cover the dirt, the liner will run a round 1000, 45 mill, probably 4k to get it started before it gets to nasty. Not cheep in this bean counters book,thats the Kraut in me.

On a nother note, I built that dirt bed around the center pole in the winter garden. Its a mix between a wicking bed and a dirt bed.
The shade plants in it did not do to good, they were struggling.
I finally got me one of those LED lamps, red, green and blue. Hung it under ceiling and only use it in the evening, while I am in the room. That lamp made a big different, the plants are purking up, even the strawberries.
Brian, might be a thing to look into, for your operation.

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3 Dogs, 2 Pigs and a Bier

Yeah this one is the bomb: http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=427966&page=1


Florida if I remember correctly. The above picture is after it was just started, and it filled in with rain. Look how clear it is.
They are still digging. "It is 136ft wide and 320ft long, and 40 feet deep," he said!

Massive envy
Our pond is full now after these rains. I'll go out and read the gauge, but for the last week it has been abut three inches. This may mean we'll have an ice skating pond this year! It dries up quickly though.
I've been thinking about the lights. It's just that I've got to run all expenditures through my wife now. Which, I'm happy to do, I did not plan anything with my build, and lo and behold nothing was as cheap as I thought it'd be. As you note, lights that work aren't cheap to buy or run.
I too worry about snow loads this Winter. Seems like it is going to be a humdinger. I'll cut a couple custom posts for over the pond, for support. Perhaps, I do a little chainsaw carving on them.
My goal for now is buy a backup sump pump, seal seal seal, insulate a few panels on the roof, and begin building the Ardunio for the long Winter days ahead.

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Brian's AP

Hard Specs: 2600 gallon Masonry fish pond. Everything else in flux.
My life's Oxymoron: Retired workaholic

We did not have any Monsoon at all. We had 1.5 inch in J J A and O.
Its supposed to snow Tuesday night and through Wednesday. Its welcome.
I guess you a right snow load could be a problem this winter, especialy late winter.
The light is a Mars Hydro, 300 w, it runs around 70 on e-bay.

The hole is 13 feet on the bottom long and around 8 feet wide and around 4 feet deep.
Considering some slope 3500 gallons, or so.
I have no idea how the earth warms would help, but the big pond, when it is full, freezes good enough that I can drive on it. My guess about 3 feet of ice.
The pics from the hole are taken from the south. Northwest corner is low spot ( left corner ). I would put one suction drain their, to catch solids and dirt. That pump could be on a timer, a few hours a day. But would be important in the winter. My guess the greenhouse will produce enough heat during the day, that I could use a 55 gallon barrel during the day to get warmer water into the pond. Might have to use a livestock tank heater on cloudy days. Intake pipe and discharge pipe would be frost proof 3 feet in the ground, till they get to the greenhouse.
Naturally have to consider the North side of the green house, we have windchills of -50F, 30 miles an hour winds and -30, December and January, just 3 or 4 weeks, but they are rather nasty.
Naturally the very interesting question is the pump and were to locate it, so that it is frost proof and can be serviced.
It is an interesting problem.

When winter is over and summer hits how do I cool the water enough for any fish to survive. Because of the winters trout would be the choice, but they can not handle 100F or close to 40 degrees. for at least 8 weeks I have to cool the water.

I have to think about that one.

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3 Dogs, 2 Pigs and a Bier

I'm surely no expert, that being said, I would think about adding an insulated fish house building over it. My thinking is you get the benefit of keeping varmints out as well as stabilizing the temps. I see what you mean though about the freezes, might be a nightmare to keep from freezing. I wonder if you could go deeper, and make the fish house completely underground? Wind chill would be negligible, at least.

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Brian's AP

Hard Specs: 2600 gallon Masonry fish pond. Everything else in flux.
My life's Oxymoron: Retired workaholic

I might just put some pex, 3/4 inch under the liner, snake it like a floor heating and than run some warm water through it.
Still got quiet a long piece of that super insulatet, 2 x 1 inch, underground piping, from my outside furnace lying around.
Since I would have to trench any way from the pond to the Greenhouse, for the pipes, I could just run that insulated stuff in the trench.
This late in the year not much will happen anyhow. It will snow for the next 3 days.

Maybe if the weather is ok next week I get a trencher and start with that.

Have to check with the local liner folks, what there tarp will cost.

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3 Dogs, 2 Pigs and a Bier

This has been a strange winter. In December we got hammered by snow and the temps just dropt out from underneath us. We had -30 C end of December and windchill in the upper -40. January did not improve the weather thingy very much. I measured a total of 6 feet of snow fall for the 2 month and 40 days were we did not get above -5C. Than in Feb and March the moisture just got turned of but not the cold. We went from +15C to -20 in hours and than again, puff nice and warm and a day later, cold as it could be.

Now it is May 7th and it has snowed 4 days in May. This morning 4 inches. Its gone again but what the .........

Strange, that's all I can say.

But back from the bitching about weather, which does not do anybody any good, to growing things and building things to do that.

I started on a greenhouse, it will be attached to the Winter Garden and will be able to use the fish tank in it for some aquaponics.
I am building the GH out of Red Wood, just for the love of working with such a nice wood. Its rather expensive, but than we all know love is a costly affaire.

Since I can not get any 2x4s ( inches) in the county or any where reasonable close buy, I am cutting my materials out of 4x4s. That requires extra steps to produce nice looking timber.
1. I split the 4x4, than I plane them, than sand them and than router the edges.

The GH will be only 10x11 feet, plenty of food for one person to be grown in it.
I will do all 3 methods of growing, dirt, wkingbed and aquaponic, may add a hydro system just to learn.

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3 Dogs, 2 Pigs and a Bier

I ordered the sheeting for the green house. I decided go with 8mm triple wall. Its pricy, but than I have to consider snow load, UV, and a little insulation.
That's the stuff, http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/prod ... ate-panels.
Weather should be nice for the rest of the month, so when that stuff gets here, all the wood work will be finished.
Once everything is covered I can start with grow beds.
I decided to kill all plants in the winter garden, take them all out. I can not get rid of the white fly investation. I tried everything, bios, chemicals, predators, striping plants of their leaves and what ever I was told.
Once I have a system in the green house going, I will clean out the wintergarten, let it sit for a month or 2 and than start all over.

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3 Dogs, 2 Pigs and a Bier

Boy howdy! That looks great. Glad the Winter for the most part is behind you. I love working in Redwood as well, except for the splinters. Whiteflies, yeah man what a pain. I need a subscription to Bugs R Us

I keep hoping they'll reproduce, so far this Winter we've released about 1500 every other month in our greenhouse.

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Brian's AP

Hard Specs: 2600 gallon Masonry fish pond. Everything else in flux.
My life's Oxymoron: Retired workaholic

You look rather chilly skinny dipping, at your age, but than I saw you did ol' shameful. Hippi, ol' Hippi.
Hihihihihohi.
But I am sure glad that winter is over. That erratic weather has done a number on me. The shingles have had a battle royal against the vaccination. No outbreak, but rather painfull were the scares are. So I hope the weather settles down and my body, too.
So again, since you are my age, if you have had the chicken pox, get vaccinated, same for anybody else over 50.
Do not give a crap what it cost, just do it and than worry about how to pay for those $300.
If not, you will be in the same situation like me, for the rest of your live and it sucks. You get used to it, but it still sucks.

I basically have finished the skeleton of the greenhouse. Now I can think about the interior and how to set up the Aqua and the heating for winter and the ventilation for summer.

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3 Dogs, 2 Pigs and a Bier

Thankfully not everyone gets shingles but the virus hangs around in pieces along your nerves after you've had chicken pox. Your immune system doesn't recognize the pieces but at some point down the road when you have a weakened immune system or some other trigger it can reassemble to give you shingles which is no fun (pretty much an understatement but everyone is different).

I had the shingles and it took nearly 2 years to get healed enough for getting vaccinated. Since than, the scares are extremely sensitive to any major change in weather or any other form of stress.
Best thing, don't get them

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3 Dogs, 2 Pigs and a Bier

That will happen for years but it gradually gets better .

So I have been told.
In German it is called Guertelrose = belt rose. So I call my new friend Rosie and every other month she comes to visit.

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3 Dogs, 2 Pigs and a Bier

Shingles sucks, no doubt. My wife got it bad. I thought about the vaccination, but didn't. It seems my wife gets everything worth getting sickness-wise. Now she has http://www.webmd.com/children/guide/hand-foot-and-mouth-disease-topic-overview If sickness were a competition, she wins every time. These viruses do scare the crap out of us. Of course we're both dyed in the wool zombie movie fans so nothing surprises us.

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Brian's AP

Hard Specs: 2600 gallon Masonry fish pond. Everything else in flux.
My life's Oxymoron: Retired workaholic

I guess we have one more and last bout with winter. 3 Nights with frost, down to 30. The water situation for our large reservoir looks rather good, Mc Phee will fill up for the first time since 6 years. The situation for my ponds is rather bad. Going into the winter the ground was absolutely dry. I had to burry one of my horses late October and 6 feet plus down, dry as powder. So all the 6 feet of snow went straight into the ground and barely any run of. Water level is late August level.
Had to go to my Oldie yesterday and burry one of her Alpacas, wet, wet, wet all the way down to 6 feet, hardly could get it out of the bucket. My pastures show it, they are coming up strong, again. The gras is already as high as it maxed out last year.

The Greenhouse siding is scheduled for end of next week.
So I am starting with the aqua build. On the West side, window, I will have 3 blue barrels and on the south side I will have 2 4 inch pipes with 3 inch baskets. 11 per pipe

I will paint the pipes in a more neutral color, light so they do not heat up to much, almond.

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3 Dogs, 2 Pigs and a Bier