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Comment by Damon 12 hours ago

Where do you buy fish for your aquaponics system?

Comment by Damon yesterday

John, let us know if you can go take a visit.

Comment by Sheri Schmeckpeper yesterday

See if you can tour it, John. We have one nearby here called Rhiba Farms. They grow greens and a other things for farmers markets and restaurants. They only use the greenhouse for sprouts and wheatgrass, though. They have their leafy plants growing in floating raft beds outside on an old parking lot under a shade cloth. In fact, we're going to expand our aquaponic system outside of the greenhouse soon, and double the size of grow space. That's do-able here all year, but not in other parts of the country. Its best to see what's going on in your own region. :)  Let us know what you learn!

Comment by John Mauro yesterday

Thanks Damon!  They're close to me, about 2 hours away.

Comment by Damon yesterday

Yeah, there are. Check out Bright Agro Tech. This guy did his doctorate in aquaponic production and went on to start and run a profitable ag business based on it.

Comment by John Mauro yesterday

Thanks Sam, Sheri, and Damon for your comments on aquaponic greenhouses. I'm excited about this!  Does anyone know of someone that has a commercial aquaponics business up and running? I'm trying to determine how large of a greenhouse is needed to be profitable.        

Comment by Sam Burton on Wednesday

Damon, It has propane heat, but I haven't hooked it up yet.  Even in the coldest days of winter, it was getting up to nearly 80 in there.  I did run a heater in the fish tank for a while.  My goal is to have the heating and ventilation going sometime this year, but other things keep popping up taking all the leaves off the money tree.

Comment by Damon on Tuesday

That's a nice story, Sam.

Let me ask are your aquaponics greenhouses heated/cooled or is it just the basic high tunnel?

Comment by Sam Burton on Tuesday

Just wanted to share something about persistence.  My wife was just about to let go of her dairy goat herd after nearly 3 years, because it just wasn't paying for itself.  People loved the milk, yogurt and cheese, but didn't buy consistently enough and the dairy was becoming a drain.  When word got out that she was thinking of selling out, customers started coming out of the woodwork.  People are begging for products.  She has decided to stick with it for the season and see if things are really turning around or if it's just  a spike.  She has worked hard and now it looks like things are beginning to move. 

Comment by Sam Burton on Tuesday

Love it when Aquaponics come up.  Thanks Sheri and Damon for keeping the subject in front of us.  I have two systems going at the moment and will finish a third this week.  I am totally addicted.  I have a raft system in my greenhouse that is producing lettuce and herbs like a machine.  It has a few catfish in it.  I'm also using it as a hospital for tomato seedlings that were struggling too much to transplant.  They look fantastic after only a week.  My basil is outperforming my garden basil at a rate that should embarrass the raised beds.  I have a small continuous flow system in the garden that is planted out with squash.  The system is not really mature enough for squash, so I'm using a seaweed fertilizer foliant spray for supplemental nutrients until the system matures.  The system I'm building this week is a single barrel flood and drain.  It will be located in the middle of my self watering container garden.  The grow bed will mostly have greens as the grow bed is really there only as the biological filter.  The system's real purpose is to provide water and nutrients for the self watering containers.  After that, I'm setting up my aquariums for my tilapia breeding colonies.  Each of the three aquariums will also feed a small media bed and a raft grow bed.  I love this stuff. 

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