Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Good to see you've made it out of hibernation. We read that goldfish can't digest food when their water is 40F. Most people don't feed them in Winter.

Haha, yeah I almost got as much sleep as the bears in the mountains! I'm super happy that the weather is finally starting to warm back up. As much as I like driving in the snow, I don't really like the cold that comes with it very much.

And that's an interesting thought that goldfish don't digest under 40 degrees. I always just thought their metabolism slowed down, but still had to eat something.


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Found this on google the other day, and thought it would be a good bit of info to share with everyone.




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Well, it's been a couple weeks since my last post, and honestly I haven't been been able to get much done on the system no thanks to inclement weather and school responsibilities. I say this because two weeks ago when I got my pea plants started indoors, the weather was going wonderfully well! Then the California storm system decided that Utah needed a turn, and dumped a whole bunch of snow on us. So that out a damper on my plans to get my system up and running sooner. Then yesterday and today the weather decided to give us a break before more snow gets dumped on us (we are supposed to get two more days of snow starting tomorrow). Yay....

But for the progress that I was able to get done, i feel like it was great progress! And with that, here's the one and only pic I remembered to take: I don't know how many of you remember how a couple years ago my dad decided it would be a good idea to plant a mint cutting in my system. Well, the year that he did that it was late in the season, and I was fully expecting that weed to die that winter (as I didn't believe the root system to be developed enough to survive snow and ice). I was horribly wrong. Last year it took over that one grow bed that it was planted in, and completely choked out all the plants that I had in with the mint. So today i ripped out as much of the mint as I possibly could, though I wasn't able to get all of the feeder roots out (I'm guessing that will be a problem for me later down the road). But hopefully I was able to get enough of the large roots out to have made a decent impact on the plant, so I can grow my other plants I have planned for this year (I'm doing Lemon Boy tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lettuce in DWC, and kohlrabi and cabbage in another bed). But we will see. Once I had the mint removed, I also pulled out as many of the weeds that grew last year inside the greenhouse so it is clear and open again.

And the second thing I got done was to get the roof panel replaced that blew off sometime ago! Thankfully my dad had some old corrugated fiberglass siding that I just cut down to the dimensions that I needed, and with the help of a jig saw, a pair of tin snips, and a drill motor, I was able to get that installed with the clips that came with the greenhouse and some roofing screws to actually hold it in place this time around. Now all I have left to do is to fill the roof edge with some Great Stuff expanding foam to seal it against the elements.

That will hopefully happen after my wife and I take charge of the horse we bought for her this weekend (I would have preferred a motorcycle or a solar kit for the system, but happy wife happy life right?....). But we will see what the weather brings.

That's it for today, I'll try and post a pic or two of the new panel tomorrow if I can remember. Good evening everyone!


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Hehe so mint is not good in the AP. Alrighty then.

No no no, mint is awesome in aquaponics. It has the time of its life and everything else just has to surrender.

It's absolutely true that it grows wonderfully well! If you don't want to grow anything else that is....


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I'm wondering if mint will work better in NFT troughs and media pots so it would stay confined, or do you think the roots will still grow like crazy and clog an NFT system? I mentioned it to my wife a few days ago because she is doing research on mint plants of different varieties... mentioned growing some and I told her we would have to put it in a bed by itself or thought maybe NFT might work so it doesn't take over... actually maybe DWC would be OK too so I could remove the rafts and give the roots a trim if they start expanding too much...

I told the wife based on dragoon's experience that maybe we should toss a bunch of mint out in our field and maybe it would take over and beat out all of the weeds growing out there and we'd have a better looking, better smelling field...

Rininger, judging from how crazy my mint got, id imagine that it would do the same in an NFT setup. And that's why IF I ever decide that I want mint again, it will be placed in its own separate bucket! As for DWC method for mint, I've never considered it as an option. May be worth a shot, as long as it's in its own bucket!

Well, I got the system up and running yesterday finally! The goldfish is still going strong, all three siphons seem to be doing pretty well and are starting reliably, just not stopping reliably all the time. Next step is to pick up a new bag of media, as I took out about half of the lava rock it seemed like when I pulled the mint out (I can see the moisture line under the rocks). I also got the stand pipe trimmed down for my DWC bed, as it was uncomfortably close to the top of the bed. So hopefully the half inch I trimmed it will be enough.

On the plant side of things, I've got 4 sweet pea plants started, 4 cherry tomato plants going, and 6 lemon boy tomato plants going as well. I'm rather excited for the lemon boys as I've never tried them before, and do enjoy a good tomato. So hopefully that works out. Anyway, that's all I've got for now.

Cheers!


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Dragoon it's been 7 months, what are you up to this year?

Hey rininiger and everyone, sorry for the lack of updates. This summer has been ridiculously busy at work since they hired on a new sales guy. So sadly, all my hobbies went to pot this year.

But as for a quick update on the system: this spring started out strong, I had gotten peas, lettuce, tomatoes, squash, and some melons planted (my wife wanted us to buy some plants that were already going). They were doing alright for the first little bit, using up the nutrients that the lone goldfish had managed to produce through the winter it was frozen. Well, when I say frozen, I mean that it had about 2-3 inches of water under 15-20 inches of ice. So it didn't get fed all winter, because i had no way of getting food to it. But somehow the fish survived. Anyway, sometime early this year I decided that instead of spending a bunch of money on more stressed out goldfish that I knew I wouldn't be able to take care of (the system, as you all know, is in my parents back yard, and I don't visit nearly enough to care for lots of fish), I decided to try a hydroponic approach this year and bought some liquid fertilizer. Well, the plants at this point were showing serious signs of potassium and iron deficiency, so when I added the fertilizer and readjusted the ph, the plants just took off in their growth. Then disaster struck. One day when I went to check the system, I found all 200+ gallons of water in the system had drained away over night, or so it seemed (because I had topped off the water earlier that week). So I assumed it was the dog getting after the cold water, and refilled it. The next day I checked it to see about confirming my suspicion, and found that not only had all the water drained, but my pump also had burned out. So I proceeded to fill up the tanks again to see where the leak was, and found that it was coming from one of the pipes connecting the two lower tanks. Once I discovered this, I let the area dry for a couple days, and redid the attachment point where the pipe goes into the tank. Unfortunately through this whole process, the goldfish that had survived so much over the past year and a half or so died on me.

After repairing the leak, and letting the silicone dry that I used to seal everything, I replaced the pump and have just let everything go, because work got in the way.so unfortunately, the system really suffered this year. Sometime this week I will be cleaning out the old plants, and cleaning out the DWC bed (which out performed the media beds btw), and testing my new fitting to see if it is water tight. If it is, I'll see about trying to convince my wife to let me buy a solar kit so I can hook up the pump and a heater, so I can experiment with keeping the system going during the winter.

As for an update on life, I finally graduated from college in April with my bachelor's in emergency services administration, got my paperwork going for the air force, got sports therapy done to rectify the runners knee I had, and now I'm waiting to hear back from the military as to whether or not they will accept me. And currently I'm also attempting to start a woodworking business out of my garage. We'll see how that goes.....

If my wife will let me buy that solar kit, I will keep y'all updated better than I have.

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I'm glad to hear your life is moving forward they way you want. Sorry about the system.

Thanks Boss, I'm really hoping the military works out as that will be my career, and it will also be the means by which my wife can stop working full time, and we can finally get our family started.

yeah, it really sucks, because everything was going so well. Maybe next year

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