Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

If they're full after 15 mins Jazz.... no sense in feeding more ... i.e feeding for thirty mins...

Quick side point,,,that "safety barrier mesh" is often used in red-claw ponds strung along vertically in the water,research shows it's added surface area allows more than double stocking rates and beats the heck out of the old car tyres laying in the bottom method.

Sorry for "side-track" but that info may be handy for some.

I think what Jazz was saying about allowing them 30 minutes to finish the food is because the tilapia often (at least in my experience with mine) seem to like to let the food get softer before eating it.

When I feed, I usually notice a first flash of boiling water as the food falls in but that lasts less than a minute as the realize the food is hard and then they wait a while before finishing off all the food but usually do it within the half hour.

I notice that if the catfish don't eat all the food in 10-15 minutes, they probably won't clean up later. The tilapia usually will clean up later.

Everything is running well. Fish are growing well. I have about 2 dozen new babies and I have seperated out all the males that are big enough for me to identify with pretty good certainty. I now have my 300 gallon(1135L) tank dedicated to all male growout. I'll keep all the others in smaller tanks until they're big enough to know for sure what they are.

The big change for me this week is:

I now get emails on my computer and txt messages on my cell phone whenever there is an alarm or every 6 hours(daylight hours only) if no alarms with a 'System OK' message. If there is an alarm and it clears itself, I also get that message.

My methods aren't as slick as they should be but hey, it works!!!

Do what works and fix what bugs you enough!

I've removed the larger hides from my big cage so hopefully there won't be any more unplanned breeding in the big tank. The babies I moved into the Aquarium are growing so freeking fast.

I haven't posted in awhile because nothing new was happening. The summer's are tough here so the other than my basil, the plants have not faired all that well. I'm fighting white flies in the greenhouse and the caterpillars ate most of my outside garden. I finally broke down and dosed them with malithion..

On a brighter note, I put my first Tilapia into quarantine today. He's 1.1 lbs (500 ml). I think he's just right for the smoker!!!

Next time, you can use BT (thuricide) or Dipel dust against the caterpillars Far less toxic to anything other than leaf chewing caterpillars.

In the greenhouse around the AP system you are pretty limited about what you can do against whiteflys so the yellow sticky cards may be your best bet.

As for summer crops that have done us good.

Out in the garden, sweet potatoes have done wonderful (and the tilapia like to eat the leaves off of the vines that grow out of the garden and get cut off.)

Crowder peas (souther peas, cow peas) have been doing well. I suppose they could be doing better since they are getting attacked by aphids and there are ants involved. In any case, even with the bug attacks, I have still been harvesting lots of em. Been eating some as fresh peas while we are drying some pods in the passive dehydrator rack. Then a batch that were pretty well covered in aphids, I washed the bugs off, blanched the pods to make them easier to shell, blanched again and that bag full of peas is in the freezer now.

Finally, Okra will do great here if you can keep the ants off of them. I've even managed to get some pods off plants that have been attacked by ants/aphids. Okra had always been an issue since you need lots of plants to get enough pods in the right stage at the same time but I have now learned several ways to preserve okra.

I put 3000 ladybugs and a cocoon of praying mantis(they haven't hatched yet) in the greenhouse. The ladybugs are either hiding or they've taken off. I only saw a few today.

I have a few sweet potatoe plants in the ground that look really good except for the leaves the catipillars ate. Other that that, I had a good green bean crop for awhile but it's played out. I just started replanting last week. I'm just growing a few at a time. Also, I have some carrots that still looks pretty good outside.

Carrots, turnips, and many other things did really well in ground in full sun over winter for me. I'm hoping to get some more squash, zucchini and cucumbers going soon because all the other plants I had in got killed off by something (probably vine borers.)

Hay there Mark,
Any updates about the system. Is it chugging along ok or have there been major changes? Did you make the greenhouse so you could roll up the plastic for the summer?

How are your control and monitoring systems doing for ya?