Wijnands, the jury (aka my wife) is still out on the "mad" verdict but all signs point to an emphatic yes and a life sentence + 117 years of hard labor. I am very grateful for your most kind comments.
Penny, it's a big carriage pulled by one little, rather sickly donkey (me) so you will have to learn to contain yourself
Joking of course. You want juice? Here is some more
A few weeks back I'd finished drawing the blueprints and submitted an application for a building permit. Yes, I said the building permit - sometimes I put the carriage in front of me. You have already caught me doing it once before
I thought I didn't need a building permit because one doesn't need the permit generally when putting up a greenhouse in the agricultural zone and so I was semi-happily tinkering for over a year. Moreover, I was just modifying the existing screen enclosure. Local newspaper Naples Daily News decided to write a column on our efforts and of course they snapped a photo and published. The County Commissioners saw the pic and the signs of construction going on and this is how I got caught. Turns out when a greenhouse is attached to a house and is not going to be used for agricultural purposes, one needs the building permit. It took a good effort to clarify this info alone. The County was nice enough not fining me and just told me to get a permit at this stage but I am dealing with lots of different County employees and departments and who knows what will happen and when.
As mentioned above, the next big hurdle was finding not only a trustworthy and reasonable civil engineer but one that would not make me disassemble a year's worth of work (and $10,000 in materials) but build on it, which means a knowledgeable and experienced engineer willing to cope with the County if it challenges us. Luckily, with vital help we found one. The engineering drawings alone would have cost $4000 but he was compassionate and let me draw myself under his supervision. Two months and $2000 later I had all I needed to submit an application featuring the calculated reinforcements to what I had built so far. These things happen left and right when you "wing it" as I was doing with my highly unconventional, self-invented building techniques, which the engineer had to calculate. You don’t build greenhouses with ½”x10’ EMT (galvanized steel conduit) pipes and stainless steel hose clamps (a steel ribbon + screw type) and other homemade fasteners etc on top of an existing commercial aluminum frame. When one of my good neighbors saw it he had a bewildered look on his face and muttered something about a monkey puzzle
The 55'x55'x22'tall structure has to withstand 170 MPH hurricane wind load... of course I assume that at some point, perhaps 70-100 MPH, the plastic and the shade cloth will rip or detach altogether. I need to be able to take off the coverings before the hurricane or cut it off if there is little time. Not for category 1 or maybe even 2, but for 3 and up for sure. The problem is that the rating=wind speed often change suddenly. For instance, the latest big one in mid-2000's - hurricane Wilma - was coming as category 1 (~75 MPH sustained), so my neighbors left the plastic on their greenhouses. Within 100 miles from us, it gained strength of category 3 (~125 MPH). No time to do anything. Ripped all greenhouses, mangled some.
BTW, the 95% shade cloth, 95'x65', was $1300 and the plastic, same dimensions, from Reef Industries (should serve 5-7 years at least) was $2200. This is much more than peanuts for us.
Anyway, atm I am waiting to hear from the County on the permit – approved or not. If approved, then construction. Then inspection by the County that I did everything as the engineer designed. I’d dearly love to have the cover on before the end of Nov (which I don’t think is happening). It’s a lot of repetitive, hard labor to keep the temporary fish-holding ponds warm enough during colder nights, sometimes weeks.
) Just ensure your price balances against the economy - minimum wage in US being $7.25 [source: 
But seriously, yes, of course. Why not? Even if you wanna get married under water in our prospective 30,000 gal tank surrounded by monster fish, that could be arranged too. Small business can't be too picky about how to make a buck (safely for the conscience, the customers, and the fish, needless to say).