The weather has been great here for the last few days. It is hard to believe this is the last day of Jan. I have been giving a lot of attention to outdoor activities. I did figure out how I wanted to set up the cages for my system. It will require some lumber to support the grow beds, but it will work. The cages are cut, and 3 out of 4 tanks are cut and scrubbed. The first rain day I will head to town and pick up the plumbing parts to start piping. I still haven't come up with a pump set up. I will look at the pet store when I go to town. The Harbor Freight pumps don't have a head pressure chart, at least not that I can find. I like the prices, but if it wont do the job, price don't matter. I will try to post some pictures tomorrow.

The back-up wood heater is in the building. Now I can get busy setting tank supports. I have one of the IBC's cut, and I have my first problem. If I set it up the way the book and video's say to, I can't use the main drain valve. I am putting a submersible pump in each tank, but also need to draw off the bottom valves for the rest of the system.  As it stands right now there will be 4 IBC fish tanks w/grow beds. Then there will be 10 grow beds made from 55 gal blue barrels cut in half longways, and finally there will be about 60 ft of pipes  to grow in.The biggest challenge I see is keeping the water all going down hill :) I have a short wife so my elevations are limited. I may end up adding a sump tank and another pump.

The wood furnace is in !!

Now if it will just heat the greenhouse, we are on our way. There may be a few too many air leaks in the framework of the building to get my hopes up to high. The other thing I need to do is add 2 more feet to the flue pipe, it isn't drawing like it should. I will work on it again tomorrow and see what I can work out.

Another warm day in the Ozarks, 69 today. We have had a strong SW wind all day, gusting over 30mph. I spent the early part of the day cutting wood. Some for the house and front greenhouse, and the beginnings of the pile that will be needed for the back. The greenhouse is all closed in now, I finished the east wall tonight.  Tomorrow I will work on getting the primary wood stove hooked up and going. Once that is done, I can actually begin building the AP system.

Not much done in the AP greenhouse the last couple days. Been busy cutting wood and getting the front greenhouse ready for use.  I did get to chat on the Aquaponics Gardening website tonight. That was very interesting, talking to others that actually do what I am getting ready for.

It was cloudy and cool today. It looks like a little rain may move through overnight. It did get up to 44 today.
I managed to talk my son-in-law into helping me move the outdoor wood heater into the kennel building. It isn't piped in yet, but I can do that by myself. I will need to get electric to the blower, the flue pipe ran and the duct work in place. Then it will be, build a fire and see how it does.

Not much done today. I did get some of the electric rerouted. It was another beautiful day in the Ozarks though. Tomorrow may be a better work day, time will tell.

Another beautiful day in the Ozarks. I am so glad too.  We got the first delivery of wood for the Aquaponics greenhouse today. There is about 4 tons of wood out there to be cut up. We moved a wood rack into the greenhouse. We also now have all four IBC's inside. I took out the wall on the inside of the kennel building, and moved the 300gal water tank into it's new home. We scrapped the water tower idea, for now. I can use this tank with a 12v pump to push water back into the potable water system. This area will be heated, so for this winter it will have to do. This will at least help with the water problem if we should run into an extended power outage.  I have two more tanks to move into the greenhouse, then I can close up the end wall and begin setting the equipment in place. We still have to move one more heater into the kennel building and run the duct work. Every day we are getting a little closer. Claygirl has gone through the seed locker and ordered what we need to get started. I hope by the time the plants are ready to go into the new system, the system will be ready.

Happy New Year everyone.

The weather was ok today, 50 degrees and sunny, but we had 40 mph winds. That lowered the temp quite a bit. I did manage to get two IBC's inside the greenhouse, and room for two more. It appears we are going to have to recalculate the positioning again. One of these days we are going to have to stop trying to add more items.

I have these inside now

and these will be next

and then these.