Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Question from an ignorant American - What is a sleeper? Up north, the term is used for baby clothing.

G59,

Sleeper - large section garden timbers, typically 200x75 or 50 (10" x 2 or 3"), typically chemically treated if made out of pine (normally Radiata), but sometimes from hardwood.

Hi Gary,
A wooden railway tie/crosstie is called a railway sleeper in Oz, and they're sold new or used for garden and landscaping purposes as well :-) very popular DIY item here!


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You can really see why Koi are such popular ornamental fish, they are great to watch.

Katmac, that pond is awesome (just watched video), so much action and interest! I could watch it for hours!

Awesome katmac. Some of those koi are massive

Thanks guys, yep some of them are huge! I am starting to come around to them. I never really got what all the fuss was about with Koi before, but they're growing on me.

I am well and truly in planning mode for the front courtyard system now.
That will be a much quicker build as it is going to be much smaller and simpler. sort of.
It will become home to some of the excess goldfish and Koi in the big pond so that the Silver Perch can go in there instead.
I may get enthusiastic with Sketchup and then give the courtyard its own thread too.

Update on progress - or lack thereof... My darling daddy is building me a frame for the growbed, because the clear fiberglass is unfortunately a little too flimsy to cope with a tonne and a half of water and gravel we think... Frustrating, but no doubt better for the long term viability of the system. The frame should only take a week and then we will be good to go!
It will look a bit 'agricultural' for a while until the cladding goes on, but the priority is of course the fish and plants.

The weekend was sucked up with constructing several retaining walls for garden beds (I supervised and made cups of tea) so it stopped me worrying too much about the system. Things are all coming together slowly!

Exciting times!

Are the kids getting into it as well?

I found some wild koi in a dam the other day, they were massive! Unfortunately it is a big no-no to keep them here, so there they stay! Looking good Katmac!

Yep, both the little kid and the man-kid are getting very enthusiastic about it. OH even admitted he had found himself talking about aquaponics at a business meeting with someone who had a friend that was similarly obsessed. Told him it would get the better of him soon enough

My seedlings inside are having mixed success. The Bunnings purchases are starting to look a bit sad in their trays, I might have to pot them up soon instead and get a fresh batch once the GB is ready. I have a few beefsteak toms that will be perfectly timed though I think. Tomatoes are Michael's favourite, along with broccoli, so a few will go in the AP, and some will go in my new dirt garden beds :-)




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Balls...
One of my biggest koi is sick
It is lying listlessly on the bottom of the pond and then having bouts of crazy corkscrewing frenzied swimming where it bumps into other fish as well as the pond sides. Looks like it can't keep itself upright properly and possibly might not be able to see.
Have had a few water quality issues so did a partial water change today, plus cleaned out the filter and added a couple of kilos of salt. Hoping that will do the trick, but I'm nervous as the only thing I've done in the past few days is throw in a green caterpillar, which I've never done before. I'm hoping it wasn't carrying some nasty parasite. After googling the symptoms I did some reading on 'whirling disease' which is caused by an almost impossible to destroy parasite, so now I'm sh*tting myself...
Why couldn't it have been a goldfish? This koi (dubbed "the King" by "the Kid") is over 40cm long.
Again. Balls...


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Can't contribute any thoughts, but sending you some aquaponicall happy thoughts and best wishes!

Pretty sure its not whirling disease as I don't think we have that in Australia.

Hiya Katmac, how has the salt addition worked with the King? (ppt?). hopefully Lucky didn't bring back a special surprise from GP.
Do you have a gb online yet or are you still relying on the canister filter? What are the water parameters?

No updates yet as I couldn't check on the system after yesterday morning - mum's 60th birthday yesterday :-)
He was still kicking just before lunchtime but not really looking any better. I didn't test the water yesterday so will do that tonight. All the rain we had is kinda scaring me as I no longer have the leaking hose which kept overflows in check. It will also have diluted the salt, but I guess ammonia and nitrite too at least.
I don't think I added enough though anyway so I might put in Another 5 kg tonight which should bring it up to over 4ppt, depending on how dilute it is already.
No GB online for another 2 weeks so it is just the 4500 canister filter for now, which has been working a treat actually until I upped the feed rate a bit.

Stu, apparently we do have it in WA but it's a fairly exotic disease. I thought it only affected salmonoids, but some people have reported it in other species. It could well be that there are just other parasites or diseases which present similarly though. In fact, that would be my guess.



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