Aquaponics 101 – The gravel goes in.

Yesterday we started washing gravel and putting it straight into the completed growbeds. We have 12 tons of gravel on site and this MAY be enough for half of the Growbeds. Everything in this project is on such a large scale. When I build a drain, I have to build another 71 before [...]

Aquaponics 101 – I’m a welder !!

One of my oldest, cutest, grossest jokes goes something like this;
This young boy is walking along the pavement one day when he comes across a discarded welders helmet in the gutter. He puts it on and finds a stick and walks along waving the stick and pretending to be Darth Vader. Just then [...]

Aquaponics 101 – Schindlers List.

Didn’t achieve much at the greenhouse yesterday as I spent most of the day dodging rubber bullets in the local township. My “Induna” (foreman), “Ziggy” got a call to say that a mob were busy tearing down his house and looting his possesions. He is South African but rents a small outside room [...]

Aquaponics 101 – Holes, heat and making a plan.

Today I drilled 72 x 50mm holes in the grow beds for drains !! I discovered two things;
1) The bottom of the grow bed is too round for a neat fit of the drain fitting.
2) The wall is too thick for the thread of the fitting.

Mmmmm, so I sat and thought for a while [...]

In your Dreams

Crisis? What crisis? Haven’t we heard this somewhere else before. Safety and Security Minister, Charles Nqakula doesn’t seem to think it’s a crisis. Nor does Gauteng Safety and Security MEC Firoz Cachalia, who said yesterday that there was “no reason to panic and no reason to deploy the army”.
Now excuse me for [...]

Decisions

As I sat pondering whether to have jam or marmalade on my toast the other day, it suddenly dawned on me that everyday, each and every one of us make thousands of decisions. Now forgetting for a minute the “butterfly effect“, some of these decisions are trivial whilst others can be life-threatening.
In a typical [...]

Aquaponics 101 – The Plastic

The big day dawns. Yep, time to put on the greenhouse film at the commercial site. Having the plastic cover on now means that we can work in any weather but it also means that the temperature inside is at least 5 degrees higher. Rainy days are great but hot days are [...]

An Agricultural Disaster looming?

Country A
A former British colony, governed by the same power-mad despot since independence in 1980, decides that all the land should belong to “indigenous blacks”. The motives are threefold. Firstly, punish the pesky whites and teach them who’s boss. Secondly, buy votes by doling out farms and equipment to peasants. Thirdly, [...]

A Lesson in Acceleration

Thanks to Steve from the Backyard Aquaponics Forum for this amazing article. I have left all measurements in imperial so if you want to convert to metric, please do so yourself.
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One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower
than the first 4 rows at the Daytona 500.
Under full throttle, a Top [...]

Aquaponics 101 – growbed stands

We had a good day again yesterday at the commercial site and started assembling the growbed stands. It is estimated that each of these growbeds will weigh 1.3 tons once filled with gravel and water so strength is vital as any deviation from parallel will result in water welling up in one side and [...]