Today I booked travel for the Aquaponics Festival at Aquaponics Source in Longmont, Colorado. It is interesting timing for me. I’ll be racing my first full Ironman just a few miles away in Boulder the previous weekend. So it looks like I’ll be travelling to the Boulder/Fort Collins/Lakemont area a couple of times in the space of 2 weeks.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been researching for our first projects and talking with a few folks. The discovery process has been fascinating. There are new operations starting to pop up here in the Pacific Northwest.
As a happenstance, someone told me about True Blue Aquaponics operating right here in Seattle! She was eating at a local pizza place, Humble Pie – who uses permaculture onsite as part of their ingredients – where a sign told her that some vegetables were being supplied by a local aquaponics farm! She told me about it and off I went.
That led me to reach out to the founder, Alex Currier. We planned to meet up a few days later. It was an interesting experience because as my first encounter with a fellow aquaponics geek outside of my partners, he was very informative and knew a lot about what was going on in the community. We’re hoping to partner on projects moving forward. It sounds like Alex is mostly consulting and helping people establish farms right now.
I’ve also made contact with Jason Garvey in Portland, Oregon who has an operation there called Portland Purple Water. I’m hoping to be down there soon to meet up with him and see his operation.
On top of all this I’ve been building up a starter system at home that will have a few smaller grow beds, sump, and a 30gal aquarium. Sourcing parts can be an interesting challenge for some items – like bulkheads, but where local stores and chain stores have failed, Amazon has filled in. I found some dish bussing trays at a local Costco that will make great little grow beds. I’ve also paid a visit to Rain City Hydro and purchased media and a few fittings from them. They supply to hydroponic growers in the Seattle area and have many ‘ponics required items like grow beds, media, to building ventilation, lights, and chemicals.
The system is needed so I can begin a system and start doing actual aquaponics research. I’m hoping to meet up with a few more people soon and to get my system up and cycling soon so stay posted!
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