A few pictures of my chickens.

Here are pictures of some of my chickens, These are a cross between Wheaten, Red star and Sex link.

 

Growing mealworms

As if I didn't have anymore to add to my plate.... Raising mealworms. I will be adding pictures of the new mealworm farm in the near future. This will go hand in hand or might I say "worm in fish mouth" with my aquaponics and will be sold in the future as part of an aquaponics package. Earthworms and mealworms work great for growing 100% organic fish and produce, and reduces the cost of buying fish food. As soon as I can get some pictures up I will and post up about the progress....

16' x 48' Aquaponics greenhouse.

This is my latest project I started a few weeks ago. It has two 1100 gallon fish tanks, 40' of grow tubes (for growing all kinds of vegetables and herbs) and 64 sq ft of floating raft for growing lettuce. I'll be posting up more pictures of the progress.. Plant and fish growth. 

There will be several different grow systems added to this set-up in the months to come, utilizing every square inch of greenhouse space. 

I am also adding worm beds. The worms will be used to feed the 2000 tilapia and the fish waste will be used to feed the worms.

100% solar Greenhouse project in the works

I finally got the stuff to build a 10x20 greenhouse and have decided to make it into a complete solar run aquaponics project. When I am done it will be totally run by solar and thermal heat from the vermiculture beds and sun. It will have 12 volt cooling fans to keep cool and fresnel ( ­solar concentrators) heated water for winter heat. I will be documenting my progress...

I'll explain more about the fresnel heating and vermiculture later...

Something different... Worms and chickens

I think I am going to start writing about my chickens and growing worms, since they play a part in my quest of being self-sufficient. I decided to step up my worm production and get away from buying feed for the fish in my aquaponic systems. Several experiments have proven very successful in raising worms and now I need to build on a larger scale.
I have been raising chickens just about all my life and they are fun. We currently use them for egg production and fertilizer. In the future I will be using them for meat and selling chicks. There seems to be a high demand for chickens these days and people are buy up free range eggs as fast as they can be put in a carton.
My plans are to get from 100 chickens to about 300 and design my system around the worm beds to bring up my worm production. The current test on raising worms with fish waste is working very well and I think by using fish waste with chicken poo will work out great. Eventually I will grow my worm beds large enough to use them for heating the greenhouse and water.
In a later post I will discuss a solar hot water heater that I have never seen done before. It should be an interesting project. 
Very soon I will start posting pictures of my chickens, worm bed projects and anything else that relates to our quest to becoming self-sustaining. More aquaponics pictures coming too.
Stay tuned!

Celebrity tomatoes & peppers in aquaponics

So far Celebrity tomatoes seem to be the best for my aquaponics set-up. They are a medium to large tomato that is good any way you can fix them. Raw, cooked, sauces, canned and pickled. Even fried green celebrity tomatoes are a favorite on our table. I tried several different varieties this past spring and was more than displeased with the outcome.

The cayenne pepper is growing very well and I have had a bumper crop from them as well as the fajita bell. I will post up pictures in the next few days with more info on what is doing good.

I also have some new aquaponic systems in place and one large system that I am currently building for a customer wanting to get completely off the grid.... Stay tuned, more info coming...

Aquaponics 2+10 system update 4-6-2011

This is an update on the 2+10 system.

Fill and drain grow bed aquaponics 1 4-07-11

Fill and drain grow bed. Perch in the tank and herbs in the bed. Will update later showing the new growth from seeds and the bell pepper plant.

Aquaponics update 4-07-2011

Update on my aquaponics system. PH is 7.0 and the water temperature is 59.7 as of April 12th 8:00am. Still cooler than I want, but it will soon be up in the 70's with the rising summer temps. As you can see everything is growing great.

Herbs planted into grow bed 3-15-2011

Sorry for the quality of the picture. I was using my cell phone. In this grow bed I have strawberries, 3 kinds of basil, 2 kinds of parsley, cilantro, chives, rosemary, 2 kinds of mint and lemon balm. I'm sure I'll plant more stuff in here in the near future. There is a 100 gallon fish tank with perch on this setup.

Check back often to see the progress of this system. I will be planting all kinds of herbs in the grow bed as well as all kinds of vegetables in the grow tubes. This system performed very well for me last year. This year should be even better. There are sun perch in this system providing the fertilizer. No other additives are introduced which makes it 100% organic. 

My wife is an extremely good cook and uses all of the herbs and vegetables grown from the aquaponic systems. The food is far better tasting than that of any restaurant food I have eaten.

Aquaponics has been and is very fun and educational. I learn something new everyday and the benefits are very rewarding. Peace of mind know where your food comes from and what is in it. The convenience of having herbs, fruits and vegetables growing in your own back yard, deck, patio, balcony or even indoors is fantastic. No standing in lines at the store, no searching for the right farmers market, being able to sell or give away your over-runs and having friends and family over to eat fresh picked produce is priceless.

richlynconceptsllc@gmail.com

Grow Better

See my other videos on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/richlyn71

Watermelon. It should be very interesting to see how this plant grows and what kind of fruit it produces.

Radish popped up after about 4 days!

Grey Zucchini

Cucumbers sprouting. I planted them in with the Rosemary.

Tomato seedling

Automatic fish feeders

System is totally planted

Basil, tomato, watermelon. squash, radish, strawberry, and a few other vegetables coming along just fine.

Purple basil

Basil growing good

Tomato seedlings planted on 3-10-2011

More tomato seedlings

Rosemary and cucumber. The Egg plant seeds have not sprouted yet.

Front view of the grow bed. Beans on the right are growing nicely.

Update on the 5+1 System.

Goldfish eating and very happy

Grow bed with basil and radish. Strawberries have not sprouted yet.

More pictures of an Aquaponics system.

Automatic fish feeders installed

Recent Aquaponics start-up

 Nice compact greenhouse for small areas.

 System powered up waiting on plants and seeds to be planted

Aquaponics test system 1

My aquaponics 2 of 2

My Aquaponics 1 of 2

Herbs in Aquaponics

Growing herbs in an aquaponic system is so easy and they grow very fast. The taste is much better than soil grown as well. Pictured above is sweet basil, apple mint and Thia basil.