2010 Aquaponics Trainings in Hawaii

Commercial Aquaponics Group Training
Designed for people who want to make money feeding other people (but as we say “Don’t quit your day job just yet!”) These commercial aquaponics systems grow a lot of food in a small space with high energy efficiency, but our aquaponics training will not magically turn you into a businessperson. Please make sure you get training on running a business from local sources.

Enroll now for 2010 Aquaponics Training to reserve your space!

Our next group Aquaponics Training is from October 4th to the 7th, 2010, includes four full days of classroom instruction with additional hands-on instruction at our farm each day. You will learn everything you need to know to build and operate aquaponics systems of any size. You will have all your questions answered, and the trainers will make sure you understand every detail completely.

You’ll learn what we learned at the excellent University of the Virgin Islands 2007 Aquaponics Short Course, which cost over $4,000 with travel, lodging, rental car, and food. This was for ONE participant). You’ll also learn everything we learned this past three years building and operating five aquaponics systems, a tilapia hatchery and nursery, a Health Department Certified vegetable processing facility, and most recently, improved water circulation designs that use as little as one-tenth the electricity for pumping water our original UVI designs did.

We will show you how we got our aquaponics farm USDA Organic Certified AND Food Safety Certified(no small feats! We are certified through Oregon Tilth, and they have said that “as long as people build their systems exactly as Friendly Aquaponics has done, then their certification process will be a slam dunk.”). Five additional Friendly students have gotten their systems USDA organically certified as of June 2010.

We built our systems for less than one half what systems built to the UVI specifications would have cost in Hawaii. This saved us about $100,000 in our three systems. We’ll show you how to value engineer your system to save you $30,000 or more over what it would cost to build the “standard” UVI system. Because of the way we value-engineered our systems for electrical economy, they use from one-tenth to one-half of the electricity the UVI systems use. This saves us $6,800 per year (more, as we grow in size). Forever. We’ll show you how to do this. We will show you how to build your own hatchery for under $300 in materials, not including the cost of whatever tank you use. We spent over $25,000 on our own hatchery before discovering how to build this simple, elegant hatchery system!

The Group Commercial Aquaponics Training material includes: a step-by-step “Construction Manual” with complete materials lists and suppliers contact information that makes it easy for anyone to build a system; an accompanying set of detailed CAD plans including site plans and piping schematics; an “Aquaponics Course Manual” covering all aspects of aquaponics, and an operations manual with checklist covering the day-to-day operations of a commercial aquaponics system.

Complete plans and materials lists are included for three different sizes of outdoors aquaponics systems: a 1,024 square foot system expandable to 4,096 square feet; a 256 square foot system expandable to 512 square feet; and a 64 square foot system expandable to 128 square feet. In addition, plans and instructions are included for four indoor/outdoor systems from 2 square feet in size up to 32 square feet. These systems can be operated outdoors under natural light or indoors under flourescent lights, so you can easily build a small, inexpensive system to gain experience and confidence with aquaponics whether or not you have an outdoor space to grow in. It’s easy to graduate to the larger systems after building and operating a smaller one. Cost to attend the Commercial Training is $1,500, additional persons from the same project are $900 each.

Enroll now for 2010 Aquaponics Training to reserve your space!

Click here for complete training outline.

This year we have added an optional BioGas workshop to the training!
October 7th & 8th will feature a workshop on methane-producing biodigesters given by David House (author of “The BioGas Handbook”). This workshop will cover building, operating, and using the methane from a biodigester (for purposes of heating, powering generators and engines, and more) with working biodigesters demonstrating biogas principles, and a methane-powered electric generator producing our aquaponics farm’s electricity during the hands-on session in the afternoon. The BioGas workshop is an additional $225 for aquaponics workshop participants, but can also be attended separately at a cost of $280 including workshop materials and David’s book “The BioGas Handbook” (even if you do NOT attend the commercial aquaponics training).

Sign up for Aquaponics Training AND BioGas Workshop)

Sign up for BioGas Workshop ONLY (You are NOT planning to attend the aquaponics training)

Click here for training testimonials.

Your Personal Trainers for the Commercial Aquaponics Training:
Susanne Friend, the owner of the company (with degrees in biology and chemistry) is your personal trainer for questions and issues regarding organic certification, plant and fish diseases, sales and marketing, value-added processing, fish hatchery and nursery design and operation, water and aeration questions, and water quality questions.

Tim Mann (technical staff) has been doing architectural and civil engineering design and drafting since 1990, and was an authorized AutoCAD dealer for 7 years during that period. Tim handles comprehensive system design and site-specific aquaponics questions as well as technical issues having to do with tank, piping, aeration, pumping, and electrical design. Tim also supplies civil, structural, electrical, and mechanical engineering services for those projects needing code-compliant plans and certifications for their local building departments.

Sign Up Now: Space may be limited
Sign up for this course now and we can promise you a space will be available. Our April 2010 course filled the largest room available at our local facility to capacity (78 persons).

Taking either the group Commercial or the Personal Intensive training is the first step in becoming a Friendly Aquaponics Affiliate (click here for more details on our Affiliate Program)

Enroll now for 2010 Aquaponics Training to reserve your space!