Doing Your Test Grows, or “How Do I Know What To Grow?”
You can’t make money with aquaponics if you grow the wrong things. Not everything will earn you the same return, and guessing is deadly. Especially guessing [Read more…]
High Density Planting Strategies And Specialized Techniques For All Greens Crops
Planting Strategies And Specialized Techniques For Greens Crops
It took us an embarrassingly long time to notice that tiny seedlings have completely different space requirements than fully-grown plants, and to figure out how to make this fact useful [Read more…]
Pots, Potting Mix, And Seeding
Pots, Potting Mix, And Seeding
Good aquaponics sprouting methods involve putting the seeds into a slit pot holding potting media. Right from the beginning, we always used [Read more…]
Seeds For Your Aquaponics
Seeds For Your Aquaponics
If you choose to pursue organic certification, you MUST purchase organic seeds whenever they are available in the varieties you plan to grow. [Read more…]
Planting Trials Results
Planting Trials Results
Results of our system test plantings from Dec. 2007 – April 2012 are contained in the downloadable PDF file SuperchargedVegetables.pdf, which you can download by CLICKING HERE. We can’t really put it in the blog post here, because it’s 24 PAGES LONG! And full of color photos! (Get the idea?). [Read more…]
Cleaning Your System; Fish Tank And Troughs
Cleaning Your System; Fish Tank And Troughs
Our systems collect “solids” until they are 2-3 inches deep in all eight of the 80-foot long troughs; we’ve coined a technical term for this: crud. It comes from [Read more…]
Marketing Your Product: Research First!!
Marketing Your Product: Research First!!
How To Drive Success: Don’t just “grow something” and hope you can sell it; make sure you do test grows, market research, financial projections, and develop a marketing strategy first to see if it’s a good choice or not. [Read more…]
After Your Test Grow, What Do You Do With The Information?
After Your Test Grow, What Do You Do With The Information?
Test Grow information can be potentially confusing, and it can be difficult to figure out which are the most profitable crops; unless you use a “Friendly” tool to organize and compare the information in an easily understandable form.
(Below) The “Friendly” Projection Tools are MicroSoft Excel spreadsheets (you need Excel to use them). We include a link to our “Spreadsheet Lite” right after this image (there are two additional spreadsheets that come with our 5-day live trainings; this is the free one). The second link right after it is the instructions for how to use this free spreadsheet. A screenshot of the “Spreadsheet Lite” tool is shown below.
Click this link to download our “Spreadsheet Lite”.
Click this link to download the Instructions for our “Spreadsheet Lite”.
The “Multiple Crop” spreadsheets, which come as part of our 5-day live trainings, come in two flavors: “with” outdoors growing included (for seasonal growing in an outdoors aquaponics system in conjunction with your greenhouse), and “greenhouse only”. They can handle four separate growing seasons in a calendar year and ten crops per season, and is specifically for those growers who understand seasons and scheduling required for multiple crops from the same aquaponic system (or for those growers whose partners understand spreadsheets really well!). Both these spreadsheets and the instructions for them are found in your DropBox folder.
These are awesome tools, and will tell you if something is a good idea or not before wasting thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours growing it. You must do your homework during your test grow and record cycle times and weights accurately; the numbers these spreadsheets generate are fantasy if not derived from actual vegetable growth data from your location. Some of these numbers must come from the homework you did during your market research (see the Market Research topic in The Business Of Aquaponics section of this manual) and found out which of your test grow “winners” sold for the most money as compared to other crops.
System Catastrophes And Recovery Techniques
System Catastrophes And Recovery Techniques
This section covers bad things that can happen in your system, how to prevent them, and how to recover from them if they do happen. [Read more…]
How To Start Small And Generate Cash Flow
How To Start Small And Generate Cash Flow!
How To Drive Success: Don’t start big with lots of expenses and hardly any cash flow; rather, start small and generate cash flow right away
It’s funny how many people claim to be “commercial aquaponics experts”, but have never done it for a living [Read more…]
Daily, Weekly, And Monthly Tasks In A Commercial Aquaponics System
Daily, Weekly, And Monthly Tasks In A Commercial Aquaponics System
Daily Tasks:
Feed The Fish:
The fish food we use is Rangen 1/8” floating catfish food. You can use any floating food that has about a 30% protein, 6% or more fat content, but TRY to find a fish food [Read more…]
How To Keep Your Fish Healthy and Alive When Hauling
How To Keep Your Fish Healthy and Alive When Hauling
IMPORTANT- You can kill fish with bad hauling techniques! Even if you’re getting your fish from a pond or lake on your property, you still need to haul them a short distance [Read more…]
Feeding The Fish And Making Your Own Fish Food
Feeding The Fish And Making Your Own Fish Food
The fish food we use for both catfish and tilapia is Rangen 1/8” floating catfish food. You can use any floating food that has [Read more…]
Potential Startup Problems
Potential Startup Problems
FIRST: Too Much Ammonia Will Stop The System Startup! Your system will guaranteed fail to start if [Read more…]
Results Of Our Test Grows
Results Of Our Test Grows:
Positive Results Of Our Test Grows:
There’s a ton of stuff our aquaponics systems grow really well: basil, thyme, oregano, cilantro, Italian parsley, and other specialty herbs; all kinds of lettuces, chives, green onions, [Read more…]