Quote Originally Posted by davidstcldfl
Your right, most of the AP experts selling stuff/systems are...well, questionable. I've read enough about Friendly's set ups and have actually looked at one of their commercial set ups over in Brooksville FL. Pretty impressive.
I know the owners....I can hook you up with a free tour of the one in Brooksville...so you can check it out first hand...? Since your in the Master Gardener's program, 'maybe' they'd even let you 'sit in on' the next commercial classes in Oct.
David, that would be really great. I could not pass up an opportunity like that! As I have told many people, Friendly's training seems the most comprehensive based on their outline (click). However, I have spoken with several people that were "unimpressed" with the training and felt they did not get their money's worth. The trainings from other companies I have seen were definitely not worth the money. There's way more information on the Internet for free, and most folks would be better off joining a forum like this one to get started. On more note though, I am not saying that their system would not necessarily work. If one guy tells you to buy $5000 worth of air pumps and another guy tells you to simply life the rafts up a few inches (practically no cost) and both systems yield the same... well they both work, but in my opinion spending the $5000 is stupid in this case. A lot of these trainers may have in fact created a system that works, that I don't doubt, but they start talking about the "science" behind what and why, and they're literally blowing air out their @$$ because they really don't know, made stuff up (not to deceive anyone they think they're right), or heard something through the grapevine that's just not true. A perfect example are these "rules of thumb" regarding ratios. Most folks get told one thing or another, and the ratio only takes into consideration grow bed area and tank gallons and fails to address the fish mass and feed rate. Dr. Wilson Lennard has a tool that tackles this on his website for backyarders... ANYWAY, I hope you see what mean