I have been very busy researching aquaponics since I submitted the first article about raising catfish in a barrel. That article was posted in it's original form from a 1973 magazine article. This got me looking around on websites and you-tube for more information on how to raise fish on a small scale for our family. This week, I stumbled on to a you-tube video made by a student in Canada. She was using a system called barrel-ponics. If you would like to search for this you-tube video, just go to you-tube and search for "barrel-ponics".
I was happy to find she had a link posted with the video to the source of the barrel-ponics manual. It is at the following website. http://www.fastonline.org/content/view/15/29/ This is the link for the pdf. manual on how to build the barrel-ponic system. I have priced, what I think is probably the most expensive part of the system, the barrels, at our local farm and feed store. I have found that the blue plastic food grade barrels can be purchased for $17 each.
We have also managed to aquire some old trusses from a torn down shed. We plan to salvage the wood in the trusses to make a solid base for a pvc greenhouse. Also we will use the same wood to build the frames for the barrel-ponics system. Once this greenhouse is built, we plan to build the barrel-ponics system and start our own fish farming adventure. I believe that including all supplies for greenhouse and barrel-ponics system, we will not spend more than $300 to get started. I'm really excited about these upcoming projects.