Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That’s coming on real good.

My better half said it’s so pretty.


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Thanks Capncoke and gnoib.

With the hot weather definitely upon us, I decided to add more Cumbungii plants in each of the water troughs. I cut holes in some disused pots, then added rocket pots to create a void in the pot so water can freely pass through. Then planted the Cumbungii in rock.

These plants are very fast growing and recognized for there ability to remove toxins from water bodies. I think they would make a great plant to add to a traditional aquaponic system to improve water quality when all growbeds are full and nitrates still high, such as toward the end of raising trout annually. They could then be removed and kept in a bucket of water when not needed as they are really quite hardy.

Where I live this native species is regularly sprayed with poison in irrigation channels in an attempt to stop them spreading and restricting water flow, so I rescued these ones before hand, when I heard that they were about to proceed with spraying.

On another note, I noticed today that one of the the water ribbons is in flower. They produce eatable tubers once cooked and were a staple for many aboroginal tribes. I have yet to try them, and will wait until they are established to do so.

This week 4 days are expected above 43deg C. The algae has been going a bit nuts, so I lashed out and purchased another 240 aquatic and ephemeral plants, including two species or Nardoo, and carex, along with milfoil.

Hopefully this helps the water to remain swimmable over the summer, until the system balances with adequate plant growth. Oddly enough ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are all still unmeasurable, and the fish are very active and appear happy.

This looks great with the kids having fun.

67C temp difference between your place and mine.

i think i'll take the heat.

Returned home after the usual Christmas shenanigans, to find that despite the ongoing heat, the algae has slightly subsided, so the extra planting is doing the trick.

Amazingly the larger leaf Nardoo has in some cases nearly doubled in size.

The fish are very active and look to be around 10-12cm.

Life is very full.

A couple of recent pics below. Harmful algal blooms have been avioded so far this summer with the addition of plants as decribed above. Which has meant that we have had a lot of swimming when hot. All kids agree that snorkelling to see the fish, and the elusive 'Hercules' (the largest glass shrimp i have seen that somehow made it into the pool) is the most fun, followed closely by bombs.

One issue I am having is the quanity of detritus on the rocky areas, which readily stirs up once everyone has been swimming for a few hours. So snorkelling is best first thing in the morning. I suspect the detritus will ease as the plants begin to dominate the shallow water, hence allowing more protected habitat for the cleaners, snails, shrimp etc. Currently the fish will swim right to the edge on sunset in only a few cm of water, so there isn't many protected areas excluding space between the aggregate itself.

The last pic shows the result of a big dust storm and rain we had last night.

It looks just fantastic.
Do you have any problems with mosquitoes ?

@ gnoib unequivocally no, this season i have been bittin three times at home total. We are in a hot climate so summer I am typically outdoors until late each day. Our property is around 2.5km from the Murray river across barron land. I can only attribute this to the water clarity, aeration, flow and predation from fish and dragonfly nymphs etc, as i have had many barbeques at friends this season closer on the major rivers here, and been hammered.

To rotate and generally manipulate your images, grab a copy of GIMP.

https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

It works on most operating systems.

Free, safe, open source.

Lots of tutorials.

To rotate...

click tools - rotate.

click file - export as whatever.jpg to save. (otherwise it will save to GIMPS native format)

Awesome system!