You Can Build a Commercial Aquaponics System for organic farming easily AND economically with our Do-It-Yourself packages!
You will save time and money, and be able to obtain USDA Organic Certification like so many of our students, when you purchase a Friendly Aquaponics Commercial DIY information package for organic farming. Why? First, organic farming in the soil can take you years to master and become profitable.
How do I know? I started out farming in the soil. What I remember most is how much my back hurt at the end of the day from hoeing and pulling weeds. I also remember the constant struggle to “make my day pay”.
In contrast, most of the work in your commercial aquaponics organic farming operation is done standing up, in the shade. Or even sitting down, if you prefer. And mastering commercial aquaponics is easy with our information packages, which have all the answers you need in an easy-to-understand form.
(Below) Showing half of a small (1,200 square feet) commercial aquaponics system in a greenhouse.
To help ensure your success with commercial aquaponics, we supply complete, paid technical support via email and phone . No one else in the business can offer this, simply because they don’t farm; they sell equipment and greenhouses for a living. As a result, their information is not as complete, nor based on actual experience doing commercial aquaponics farming for 13 years, as ours is.
Most importantly, of all the consultants and teachers offering aquaponics trainings, we are the ONLY ones who can teach you how to get USDA Organically Certified (so you can get up to twice the price for your vegetables), and FSMA Food Safety Certified (so you can legally sell more than $25,000 per year of vegetables). We can answer all of your questions about these certifications, because we were the first in the world to obtain both of them for an aquaponics farm (2008 and 2009).
Check with the others if you have any questions, and be sure to read up on what’s now required for farmers under the new FSMA law that went into effect in February of 2016. More info further down this page.
Purchase The Commercial Aquaponics DIY package & Plans: $195
Click here to download the 5-page Table Of Contents of The Commercial Aquaponics DIY Manual, at no charge
CLICK ON THE BLUE LINK BELOW to download (free!) “The Business Of Aquaponics”. It’s a chapter from our $195 “Commercial DIY Package” that will give anyone building a DIY aquaponics system a head start on understanding what’s necessary to be profitable in commercial aquaponic operation.
Free Download Of “The Business Of Aquaponics”
You may be thinking about purchasing a “kit” commercial aquaponics system from one of the consultants or greenhouse distributors to “get it right”, or to save work in constructing your system. But there’s nothing magical about these kits. When they arrive at your site, they are simply pallets of pumps, fish tanks, trough parts, and greenhouse parts. You STILL have to build the system. You have to do the grading for the system and greenhouse, install the fish tanks, trench for plumbing, install pumps, blowers, airstones, and assemble troughs.
With our package, you get complete system plans, a PowerPoint Construction Slideshow with tons of photos of system construction, and a 54-page Construction Manual with even more photos and easy-to-understand instructions. All the “Parts and pieces” for our systems can be purchased locally, with some equipment ordered from aquarium supply houses. You don’t need to buy expensive proprietary hardware, filters, and tanks to build our systems!
(Below) Susanne harvesting a raft of organic lettuce out of one of our three systems.
In addition, none of these kit systems, nor the operating technology they use, is USDA certifiable for organic farming use as our systems and technologies ARE. When you know “USDA Certified Organic” can mean prices of twice as much for the same produce, you know how important this is to any commercial operation.
A CRITICAL part of this package you will need in order to be profitable at a commercial aquaponics operation is the section on Food Safety Certification under the new FSMA law, which is required to sell more than $25,000 worth of produce a year.
We also cover HACCP certification, the certification that is required to be able to sell the more profitable products you can make, such as lettuce and salad mixes and other types of aquaponic products. You can’t make pestos or salsas, salad or lettuce mixes, or even wash your produce without this certification. You can’t legally package individual items in bags or clamshells without this certification; you are limited to selling whole head produce in boxes to whomever will buy it from you. But we’ve got you covered; we are the experts in Food Safety Certification, having been the first aquaponic farm in the world to get Food Safety Certified in 2009.
Also, there’s a HUGE difference in COST between our technology and the “kit” systems: when you buy the materials and equipment for your system from local sources and use our information package to put it together, you get your organic farming system and greenhouse for one-quarter to one-third of what you’d pay the kit sellers for the SAME stuff. We don’t make any money from selling “stuff” the way the kit sellers do, and so, we’re free to recommend the best, most economical, most durable, locally available “stuff” to build your farm with.
There’s more: the real difference between us and the kit sellers is that they have never operated a commercial aquaponics farm, and can’t teach you what you need to know to be successful growing and marketing aquaponic vegetables. We have been organic farming with aquaponics for thirteen years now. Because we do this for a living, we have the best information on the most critical part of the aquaponic equation: how to make money organic farming with your commercial aquaponics farm.
There are some beautiful aquaponic systems out in the world; too bad they are just beautiful, but not profitable. To see some high-tech aquaponics systems growing beautiful vegetables that completely failed to make a profit, just download (again, free!) the following PowerPoint slideshow “Aquaponic Failures”. It’s a critical look at the aquaponics failures of the last six years that will give you an understanding of why they failed and what they should have done differently to succeed.
Free Download Of “Aquaponic Failures”
When you order, you immediately receive all the material that is listed on the linked page below, so you can get up to speed on aquaponics technology right away. In addition, we supply the highest-quality paid technical support for all of our products! Details on our “Support” page.
Click for the complete list of “What you get” with this package; there’s MUCH, MUCH more included than just the 338-page commercial manual.
Please click here to see the long list of “What You Learn” as part of this course (they’re similar but different).
Click here to download the 5-page Table Of Contents of The Commercial Aquaponics DIY Manual, at no charge
(Above) Rose and Dad and two of our “Delicious Fishes”.
Our 4,096 square foot commercial DIY system costs $25,995 for materials in Hawaii. On the mainland, the same materials cost $22,425 (early 2019). This is $5.77 per square foot of growbed area, INCLUDING the cost for our commercial plans and a year’s technical support; you source most items locally.
Compare this cost ($22,425) to the same size kit system from “a well-known aquaponics consultant”, which costs $109,995, or $26.85 per square foot of grow bed area. Their system holds 6,144 plants, while our system holds 26,410 plants; or 4.3 times as many. Their system costs $17.90 per plant space, while our system costs $0.89 per plant space.
It would seem that an aquaponic system design with more plant spaces, that cost less per each, would be good for your business. Our systems are USDA Organically Certified and our produce is organic (which brings the highest prices), while their systems are NOT organically certifiable, and their produce brings lower prices. Based on this direct comparison, our aquaponic systems are the most cost-effective and profitable on the planet!
We also supply the highest-quality practical technical support for all of our products, something none of the others can offer, because they’re not farmers! Details on our “Support” page.
Purchase The Commercial Aquaponics DIY package & Plans: $195
New! Introducing the best part of the Commercial DIY Package, the Friendly Business Module:
As the commercial aquaponics farm that’s been in business the longest, we have the most business experience to share with you. That now includes the Friendly “Business Module”, which walks you through all the steps of starting a profitable aquaponic organic farming business: test growing, marketing, CSA’s, profit prediction spreadsheets, internet presence and how to build a WordPress website for your business, Organic Certification, Food Safety Certification, materials lists, supplier’s information, and much more!
It includes six spreadsheets (with easy-to-use instructions) for predicting specific crop and market success; you simply input local prices for the produce item, and your itemized costs of doing business. The spreadsheets automatically calculate your gross income, then take out total expenses (including labor- it shows you how to estimate this also), loan payments, depreciation, and even taxes, and return a bottom line number that shows how much money it is possible to make in your organic farming operation.
Your package includes a 335-page course manual, 4 downloaded “D-sized” sheets of computer-drawn construction plans, a construction manual with tons of pictures, our Commercial Tilapia Hatchery manual, our Micro System and TableTop Systems manuals, our Plywood/Epoxy/Fiberglass Tank Manual, and a day-to-day operations manual. All manuals are downloaded from DropBox.
It also includes our new Food Safety Certification package for compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). This is NOT the old GAP “guidelines”; they are no longer applicable. Our FSMA package is a self-explanatory publication that guides you through the process, and includes a sample checklist audit, complete instructions, and extensive fillable forms that you simply put your farm name and information into.
It also includes two organic farming aquaponics business plans, a promotional slide show you can use to educate your bank loan officer and investors about aquaponics, our newest pest control publication: “How To Win The War On Bugs”, the most up-to-date information on costs and considerations for using artificial lighting in your commercial aquaponics system, and most importantly: our new guide “How To Select A Property For Organic Farming” (it’s smart to check before you buy, because those folks won’t certify just any property).
Interested in USDA Organic Certification? You should be! If you grow commercially, Organic Certification usually brings double the price. We were the first in the world to get organically certified in 2008, and are the ONLY aquaponics trainers who can currently teach you how to get certified.
This package is for you if you are certain that you’ve got your greenhouse needs taken care of. If not, or if you have questions about the subject, we developed the most energy and cost-efficient protected environment growing structure in the world: the Aquaponic Solar Greenhouse.