Aquaponics

Well I have been researching a lot more about gardening and built a raised bed, a vertical herb planter and have been relatively successful with it. I researched aquaponics for some time and have since picked up a 275 gallon “food grade” IBC tote which can and will double as a grow bed and a fish tank. 

As I was trolling through Lowe’s I found a 36″x24″x8″ HDPE mixing tub for just over $12 in the concrete section which I will turn into a grow bed. The volume is 6912 which is 4 cubic feet of grow space. It can hold roughly 30 gallons of water.

I also picked up a few couplings and other pvc pieces (some from the electrical dept and others from plumbing) to start the bell siphon but Home Depot seems to have more sizes available. I’ll piece together a part list fully detailed with part numbers and such to make it easier in case anyone is looking to start an aquaponics system with minimal funds. Well it is off to work on the bell siphon.

Happy Father’s day!

52 Week Savings

Are you participating in a 52 Week Savings game? I figured I would draft up a cheat sheet to help others stay on course. In addition I also calculated a second version called “Double The Week” which is a bit more aggressive but doable nonetheless, depending on your competitive spirit. If you are participating I would like to know how you are keeping focused and how are you reminding yourself.

I’m a database administrator so I decided to set up an agent job that runs every Wednesday and executes a procedure that calculates the week number, deposit amount and then it sends me a reminder via email after it records it to my [Weeks] table. I also added another table called [NotifyList] which allows me to add additional email addresses so the notifications can be sent out to my wife or other addresses I use, which hits my cell phone. It’s pretty straightforward and has been working fine. If you would like to download a copy of my little illustration just click on the image below.

Well happy savings!