Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

here are the photos as promised... all the tanks are secures and rat-proofed... (the sump is just secured, has not been ratproofed as it will not be used to house stock...)

I added shell grit to the system yesterday - made 2 crude bags out of shade cloth half filled each with the grit and placed each over a return to the sump tank... ensures a good flow of water through the stuff every time the pump runs

Also noticed that the first of the seeds have germinated in the newer beds - marigolds - a fave with the kids and wife alike

another short youtube vid... just of the install above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZQB9MtXljk

Also a vid of my Jade Perch - the reflectionon the water is bad so you only see glimpses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPav10BX ... annel_page

Decided that I had the space and material to put another GB in today - just a small one... the tub was mocking me, daring me to find a way to install it.. so I did just that - Simple install... Standpipe in the centre of the GB, which drains directly into the redclaw tank... The water supply was already there as I used the same pipe which was feeding into the redclaw tank already. So this little bed acts as a pre-filter to the redclaw tank. I have placed some sad looking lemon grass into the GB as well as egg-plant seedlings (the lemongrass was rescued from the other side of our campus where it seems to have been forgotten)

Some updates - we threw some roseapple seeds into 2 or 3 GB's last year and forgot about them... I knew one had germinated.. but the one shown below was uncovered when one of my students cleared away the mint chokeing the GB I had assigned him.
My strawberries are still going well, with a steady triclkle of strawbs... they have been ignored and neglected, but still power along - I now have tooooo many plants and will be giving some away soon.
The GB with the banana is going well... The banana plant unfurled its first new leaf today, the beans at its base are growing fast, and the passionfruit seeds have germinated! THe passionfruit will be trained up onto the shed roof again... Looking forward to all the fruit!!!

We have eight of these around campus - all FULL of water, and I cant have one for a fish tank I would LOVE one of these for a main tank!

Been playing around with the mechanism from an old toilet cistern... I am looking to use this as a permanent fitting in my sump tank as an auto filling back-up... I plan to have this permanently connected to the tap and turned on... the float will be set inside the sump tank, just below the average lowest level during a flood cycle - this way it will only add water when there has been a fair bit of evaporation or if there is an unexpected leak in the plumbing...

Now if some vandal put a mtr cut about 2mtrs up the side you could find another use for it.

And if it could happen when I am WAY out of town it would be even better

My little barra are feeding well ... will be seperating them soon as there are some big ones who will no doubt be first on the BBQ

I compleated my next little addition today - the workings from inside an old toilet cistern set up to automatically top up my system... Evaporation from the system is rather high this time of year and this should help keep things topped up.
The float valve is set to start adding water to the system when the water level drops 3 cm below the normal lowest water level during a flood cycle... initial tests (both out of the tank an in the sump tank) seem to be promising...

Its made from mostly recycled parts - the float valve from an old cystern, several old pots (to help give it a bit of rigidity) for a stand and and a large piece of plastic from the front of one of the IBC's as a stand for the old pots (they are wired to the large piece of plastic to help make it stable...)

Moved the barra from the nursery tank into one of the IBC's yesterday afternoon... all went well and they settled in real quick. Fed them 3 hours later and they took to the food as they did in the smaller tank - happy fish = happy me... Did a head (fin?) count as I placed them into the IBC and counted 63!! Shocked as I purchased 60 fish... We never counted the fish when we got them home, just aclimatised them and introduced them to the nursery tank... after losing one as a floater, thought we were down to 59... so having 63 was a plesant surprise - Kuranda fish farm must have put a few extra in for the students - THANKS GUYS !! I photographed each fish and placed the images on photobucket (http://s365.photobucket.com/albums/oo97/Aquamad_2008/) - this is so that my students can see them as they are on holiday at the moment.. the photos are cropped, so its not as easy to see their size in relation to an average human hand...
There is a dramatic difference in size between the barra... 4 or 5 have hardly grown, where a number look like giants next to the 'runts'... suspect that the smaller ones will 'dissapear' some time soon...

Some good fish suppliers accept the average 5% losses, so give more to stave off warranty claims.
I'd say keep going back to him

Ditto.... my first trout order was for 1000.... distributed at 1000.... and reckon I had about 100 left in the tank....

Went back and got another 250.... so there could be close to 400 in there now...

I will be going back in a month or 2... friendly people and extra fish too
They are still well... glad to see the fish were not tooooo stressed by the move