Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Avoid things with oils, it can coat the gills. There are some garlic chili spray recipes around that kicks bedit. Also the aquaria water treatments are not meant for fish intended for consumption.

Ok, I thought that might be the case with the de-chlorinator. I'll let the sun do it then. Good to know about the oils, I'll look for another product or make one myself.

Thank you!

Hmm... found this to keep on hand when quick water changes are needed. Safe for food fish.



http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/1734/ClorAm-X

Another thought.... since my beds won't be right above the FT, would an occasional treatment of organocide be ok if things get bad? Seems like unless I let it drip off the plants not too much could get in... well rain could wash it off maybe...


I'll look for a chili/garlic recipe. I used to use one with dish soap and cayenne pepper in my dirt gardens, then would use organocide if things progressed. But obviously soap would be a bad thing for fish so I'll need a new recipe.

Well we had a late cold front come down, wasn't too bad near the water where I am, but just miles away there was a hard freeze and farmers were worried about losing crops. I live on a peninsula, so temperatures can vary wildly just a short distance apart. Makes it hard to know when it's going to get you. Freezes here are usually few and far between and measured in hours, but the weather has been so warm and weird here, I just can't feel confident judging what it's going to do next. So we brought our ibc's home, but that was it. I think we'll move our build date back out to early March so we can be safe from any chance of frost.

It gave us more time to think and plan though, and this weekend we may rearrange our garage aquariums and add some grow beds for some spices and peppers. Seems like it's an awfully large amount of nutrient rich water to just let sit there, lol. That should keep us busy until we can build our outdoor system.

Don't let the fear of frost delay the build. Get it built as early as possible for the simple reason that certain plants may only be available for a short period of time each year. For instance bare root trees are available right now, but they were not available when I was puting trees into my system. They cost far less than ones in planters, and are likely easier to put into a system. You can always delay on puting plants in, but if it is not built, it becomes difficult to take advantage of the seasonal availability of plants.

I live in Orlando and my suburban neighborhood is near a lake so we hardly felt any effects from the recent freeze. I agree with Ron about not waiting to start. The cold is so temporary in most of Florida that waiting until March means that your system will be two weeks later from cycling. I'd recommend get it together and start fish-less cycling. There will be plenty of warm days this week and next to make this period productive for you.


- John
Qeqq

Thanks Guys, you are both right on both accounts, but now that we began planning our garage system, that is the first one we want to build. Plus, we are waiting for our uniseals to come in that were special ordered from a marine store so we'd have to wait anyway. We'll do that one this weekend, and the outdoor one the next. The garage one will be attached to already cycled aquarium water and I'm anxious to see how the plants respond. I bought some spice plants and I have some pepper seedlings that will go in too, as soon as they can transplant.

Got the totes filled and water pumping through activated charcoal, and this coming weekend we'll finish up the build and add the fish and plants. Too bad we have another cold front coming, lol, but it shouldn't be too worrisome near me.

Where are the photos? We love pictures! I'm curious where you are putting your beds. Inside near the window? Or can you run pipe through the window and out to GBs along the side of the garage - this is something I considered as a way to keep the FT warmer in order to grow tilapia.


- John

Where are the photos? We love pictures! I'm curious where you are putting your beds. Inside near the window? Or can you run pipe through the window and out to GBs along the side of the garage - this is something I considered as a way to keep the FT warmer in order to grow tilapia.


- John

Actually, we opted to just go ahead and get the totes outside going. We only have a short amount of time each weekend (one day) since we have a standing grill out/church type thing at our house every saturday. That does limit our time to build. But the water in the outside totes should be ready for the fish this weekend and hopefully we'll get the grow bed stands built and the grow beds on them... or at least if the hubby can get enough done to where I can do the rest...lol.

He's recently been working 12 hour days so we've unexpectedly had no evening time available.

But then, pictures will come. It's just a couple of totes that are connected and have a pump circulating the water right now. Not terribly interesting just yet, lol.

Getting the lava rock, blue barrels, pipes and wood tomorrow. Hope to have this thing finished on sunday, well, except for the "pretty" things we're going to do to hide the totes and keep the sun out of them. That might have to wait until next weekend. Hope we don't get an algae bloom before then..

I just stuck two fingerlings in one of the totes to test out the water....lol.. they look fine so far. No shaking or anything weird that usually comes when fish are around chlorine.

May I interject the potential for a 'work party'?? If you are doing a gather anyway... some folk could come four hours early in their work clothes... you'll have to supervise, but again-- since you're the location of their gathers, lots of folk would be willin to put in a little 'exchange of energy' for the continued joy of both the meals and the company!!

Well the uniseals that we special ordered from a marine store haven't even shipped yet. Disappointing, but nothing we can do. So, tonight we ordered them online, like we should have done from the beginning.

Anyway, we picked up our blue barrels, lava rock, studs and plumbing and built the majority of the grow bed stands. We'll do some more on it this week as time permits, but it looks like yet another week before we can do any planting.

I took the few little fish back out of the ibc's and put them back in the aquariums since we couldn't get the grow beds attached, and put some media from the aquariums (and some fish poo from our aquarium sump) in the ibc's to start the process of cycling.

Slowly but surely...