Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The system must be loaded with nutrients from the HSM as the tank now has a lovely algal bloom going on and the plants in the beds are going crazy - this corn was planted last week

Anyway, while I await more fish (SP) it seems I must have been occupied with thoughts of grander things as look what followed me back to school from the BYAP shop today

It will go longways at the end of the decking here and will be burined into the ground far enough to allow two new BYAP beds to be positioned over over one end of it as a single pump system that we will use so that we can run SP all year round and still have trout as well during trout season.

Yeah, I'm going to have that problem tomorrow

hmm sou you got the FT hey
very nice looking system, how do the kids go with the veggies and the fish? i know much of society is leaning away from fresh veggies and foos nowadays (i.e jamie olivers food nation). i htink its a¡fantastic we are stating to see initiatives like schoolyard AP and kitchens etc . . well done

While waiting to try and secure some SP we have put 10 small koi and 18 yabbies into the tank. This tank will be polyculture from here on with SP also added when we get hold of some.

Pulled a yabby this morning to check they had survived the transistion and found the first one I grabbed to be in berry , should have a tank full in no time.


As you can see out water is still not clear despite no fish or food being put into the system for about 4 weeks now and that is with the system running continuous flow for around 1/4 of the time to increase filtration. The tank is covered by coreflute but being in full sun really is a challenge. Hopefully when all the building is completed next year I can start to look at fundraising to get a roof over the system .

Congrats on the impending births Burnsy - guess they're happy in there !

I only put them in Saturday and they had been sitting in a styrofoam box with four inches of water in it for two days after travelling 500km so I guess they are pretty happy anywhere

Woha! Cool looking tank, how long BYAP been selling those?

Pretty sure since the begining of the year but this was the last one, apparently the mould has been cut up so no more can be made, pitty as I agree they are a great space saving tank.

Polyculture update - Yabbies have devoured all ten koi fingerlings I put in the tank , this surprised me as we never had this trouble with marron or gilgies with fish and it is a big tank.

How on earth do yabbies catch koi ?

Stupid koi

They would get them at night in a special ninja move called "grabwhilstswimmingpastslowlyandriptheregutsout"

You'll be surprised how fast a yabbie can move when its hungry

Bummer ! Yeah, they are really aggressive bastards, that's why I eventually decided to just eat mine and put something useful in there.

So did you have the same problems with them being in with SP's? Need to find out if I should pull them all out and throw them in the sump to do battle before the SP arrive?

Nah, I kept 'em separate the whole time. Always thought putting 'em together was just too much of a risk, and I value the SPs more than yabbies.