Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

At home, I'm having some difficulty with caterpillars and spider mites. I may have won the battle with the spider mites (too early to tell) with diatomaceous earth, but the little green micro-monster caterpillars seem unfazed by the stuff and have utterly destroyed my broccoli and brussels sprouts.

I’ll be scanning other threads here for appropriate tactics since I’m pretty sure others have had to deal with these issues, but if anyone wants to throw a solution at me, I’d be grateful!

I use chilli and garlic spray, sprayed on daily.

You can use Dipel (or whatever it may be called in your neck of the woods) which is fish-safe.

DO NOT USE ANY PRODUCTS CONTAINING OIL as this can get into the FT and affect the fish and the gas exchange at the surface boundary.

Thanks, bunson!

Can you share your recipe?

I'm starting to see thrips and tarnish plant bugs on my strawberry plants

Get a couple of hot chillis, seeds and all and add to a blender. Throw in a couple of cloves of garlic, skin and all. Add a little hot water (doesn't have to be boiling) and blitz until as smooth as possible, then blitz some more. Strain the liquid through muslin cloth, or an old tea-towel into a spray bottle and top up as required with warm water. Some people at this point add literally one or two drops of liquid dishwashing detergent, I do sometimes but mostly I don't worry about it. Leave to stand for a few hours, overnight is better. You can make up a big batch of the concentrate so you've always got some on hand. It keeps in the fridge for a week, sometimes a bit longer.

Spray directly onto both sides of the leaves of plants and any bugs you see. Apply daily.

On the WWW you'll see similar recipes where they add oil, DO NOT do this as it can make its way into the FT and leave a film on the water and the fish' gills.


Scott

Thanks for the recipe. Making up some as I type.

I agree! Thanks for the recipe! I will try to brew some up this evening.

I dropped off some more equipment for the Frisco CTE Center school project.

Here's the big filter tank, formerly from a municipal swimming pool or water park (not sure which), shown up against the big 12Kgallon tank (yes, this is the one which broke when blown into the light pole - it just has been rolled so you can't see the fracture from this angle):



The commercial/municipal pool construction guy who has been such a gracious benefactor to the project also gave me a bunch of pipe of various lengths and types (some high-pressure, some not). I'm not sure which we will actually use as plumbing, and which will be used for such things as strawberry towers, but the bulk of it has never been used and I figure the more options the better. I also may be able to pick up some more piping before they shut down the property, so this pile might grow a tad.



A lot of the pipe was longer than my trailer, and hung half over my car. I wish I had a photo of that, but neglected to take one, so here's a much more boring picture:

Hhhmmmm, well, most of us have a good imagination...






Nice score though.

Mr.Bill: That is the strangest thing - the picture comes up for me now, even on a different computer, BUT it took forever for the forum page to load. I'm thinking there are back-end processing issues of some flavor going on with the board again.

Love the catamaran, by the way...

Shelgeyr,

We are back from vacation....

Looks like you and the big green tanks are going round and around......

Jim said that we had some storms and high wind's here, but did not effect any thing.........

call or come on out when ya get a chance......

Update: Lots of changes, but the pictures will have to wait until I've actually taken them.

1) Had a second 12,000 gallon tank delivered to the school (actually, the guy who heads up their metal shop did all the work - I just said "please"). This one, aside from not being storm damaged, started off in better shape than the other one did, so we're back on track (I think).

2) Delivered my blue 1000 gallon tank to the school, but am going to un-deliver it because I'm lending it to another school about 30 or 40 miles south of here and instead will use a 500 gallon tank to catch rainwater with here.

3) Moved yet another 12,000 gallon tank to a holding area on a friend's industrial property. I may lend that to a school, or it may end up on Craigslist. At this moment I have no idea. I just know that as much as I'd like to use it personally, I'm pretty sure my HOA would firebomb my house if I tried. I won't be posting an advertisement for it here because I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be kosher, but if anyone has any great and/or wonderful ideas, I'm all ears.

4) A kind stranger salvaged what otherwise would have been a bummer of a fishing trip out at Lake Lewisville by giving my daughter and I two decent sized catfish. They're now in my sump tank.

5) On a down note, one of my pumps died, and looks like it can't be repaired. I've done some creative (read: ugly and a trip hazard) plumbing to try to maintain the systems until I can replace it, but I haven't been all that successful and have lost 200 or so gallons of water. Thank God for the rain!

With the gracious help of the brothers who run the metal shop in the Frisco CTE school, I've taken possession of the sixth and final (as far as I'm aware) 12,000 gallon tank, courtesy of the City of Dallas. Three of them (two in great shape, and the initial one I broke last year) are in storage a couple of blocks southeast of I-35E and 191 (the President George Bush Turnpike) in Dallas (or actually, that's probably technically "Carrollton").

I say this because I don't mind if anyone drives up the I-35E service road to see how large they are (although the gate will be locked, you can still plainly see them), and I say THAT not to brag, but rather because I'm looking for ideas and so far several people who thought they might have a notion about how to use them have followed up with a version of "Whoa, no, nevermind, those are way bigger than what I had in mind" once they see them in person.

Anyone in the general DFW area know of another good school or charity that might be able to use one? Anyone around here possibly interested in letting me buy into a commercial aquaponics partnership with one? Please let me know.

Specifications: 10 ft. diameter, 15 ft. tall, and about 4,000 pounds dry.

I welcome any suggestions.

Thanks!

Finally made some progress at the CTE Center.

Not much, mind you, but some.

Here's the interior of the greenhouse:


Recently potted quite a few seedlings. At least for me, this is "a great many", although I'm sure that to some others this would be a tiny amount:

The tilapia are doing well, and the tomatoes in the growbed are going nuts. These are still pretty young plants.

I realize that there is currently not enough growbed space, but one of the students will be adding another one (also cut from an IBC tote) to the system, hopefully next week before the holidays start.