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The first totes were delivered today. One will be the first fish tank. The other will be a sump.
Total Costs To Date:
2,500฿ ($71.00 USD) for each tote
$10.00 USD Customs (they should have pulled a gun)
$20.00 USD Tank delivery to Battambang.
$24.00 USD (2 trips, one person) Taxi fare (travel expenses) to border and back.
Some good news is, the dealer we purchased the totes from will now deal with us via phone, in the future. If we need any further totes, they will ship them to us without having to return to the border to deal with them.
NOTE: This thread will offer information, images, and expenses involved in the planning, purchasing, labor, construction and planting, of a 3 meters by 4 meters aquaponics system located in Battambang, Cambodia.
Please note that I have not had time to research any of this, since arriving home earlier tonight. This is all raw data that I compiled while in Phnom Penh.
A really nice Thai lady, who speaks both Khmer and English, as well as her native Thai, has a business in Phnom Penh. Unfortunately, due to short notice, she was unavailable, she did light a fire under her staff's asses, and got them helping us. (Will explain this later.)
Anyway, the business is called Kannika Hydroponics Store (and Farm, about 100 meters away). The business is about 6kms south of Phnom Penh proper (well, the area I hang around, anyway).
I am going to contact the owner and ask her to email me a price list. I took some images while there. But, most were blurry. I couldn't see well, due to the intensity of the sun coming into the store while there. But, they offered quite a bit of what we would need, to start out, including:
Pumps:
These are all 230vac pumps. I would prefer to go with DC pumps, personally. I am considering bilge pumps. From growing up on the ocean, little RULE bilge pumps tended to be pretty bullet proof.
For media, they offer Perlite, Vermiculite, and Expanded Clay.
Perlite
Vermiculite
Expanded Clay
Image I stole from the internet. But, it looks just like the clay I photographed.
They offer starter trays for seedlings. (I definitely want to have a raft included in my systems, especially after seeing the young English guy's tomatoes doing so well that way. Won't hurt to try!)
They also have PE Polyethylene irrigating tubing and fittings, if I want to go that route. Perhaps some limited use. But, I think I want to stick with PVC pipe, for most of my system. I am accustomed to working with it. (I am open to change this view, depending on findings.)
Additionally, they have seeds, as well as other parts and accessories necessary to get started in a hydroponics system. (Nothing offered for aquaponics, unfortunately.) A few more photos, though:
My apologies for the quality of the photos. The sun was too bright and I couldn't see the display of the camera very well.
I have enough plastic bottle caps for two of these bottles, so far. They will become bio-filters for my aquaponics system, thanks to a suggestion by a guy I met through some farming forums, who lives near Phnom Penh.
It's also amazing how fast you can collect bottle caps, when you have a bunch of children running around town to gather them for you, at a cost of 3,000r / kilogram. Apparently, they fetch a better price from me, than they do for collecting the complete bottles for recycling. I'm good with that.