Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i thought i'd have time to "train" some plants, and hand pollenate, but you know what they say about the best layed plans..
i've decided that the beans and cuke's are impracticle.. they've already climbed into the joists spaces and attached themselves to cable lines, pipes, etc..



pretty silly huh? gotta re-think the cantaloupe too...

nice pics! thanks for sharring

here's the completion of the scud experiment, from about noon thirty yesterday till 7ish tonight (pretty technical experiment!)
i started with 3 leaves from a zuchini plant.. oh, and i recently harvested a lot of scuds from all three tanks..

you can see how this leaf is covered with the little critters, if i go slow i can shake this off in a bucket of water to harvest a bunch (not much left on this one!)

here's the third tank..


i harvested pretty heavily from all 3 of these tanks on saturday! i can tell from this little test that i can harvest from the middle tank tomorrow, and i might be able to get some kind of schedule going.. (yeah right)
as a side note, the scuds will "populate" a water lettuce plant's roots, but they don't kill the living plant.. and they leave duckweed alone..

same leaves less than 24 hours after those above;




i'm going to put leaves in tonight and i'll take some pic's of the harvest tomorrow

Very inspiring system keith. Showing everyone how much you can do in a small space.

How do you find your glass shrimp breed? I have some cherries and the population is finally starting to increase. Only took about 5 months!

You are getting some good growth with your lights thats for sure. Are they the standard fluro tubes?

thanks! i didn't think i had any glass shrimp breed, but i just found a bunch of small ones in one of my tanks (at least 30 or so) so i think i must have had at least 1 hatching.. i'm was thinking of switching to cherry shrimps because i hadn't seen any evidence of baby shrimp until this past weekend.. the glass shrimp are a little to difficult to see.. i ended u putting a bunch of the marmokreb babies in with the glass shrimp.. we'll see what happens
i'm using shop light fixtures that hold 2 48" 32watt t8 lights, in each fixture there's one cool and one warm bulb

So the scuds will not eat the roots, but will eat leaves in the water?

thats what i've found up to this point.. just about any vegetable matter i put in that's "dead" is broken down pretty quickly

i harvested some scuds tonight, the little tilapia go crazy for them


i moved a bunch of marmokrebs into the tank with the glass shrimp

i think i'm going to switch to cherry shrimp, the glass shrimp are to hard to see

Neat animals there!

Well worth getting some Cherries mate. I love watching them burn around the tank.

on vacation today and most of the honey do list was done, so i spent a little time with the fish..
last weekend i pulled a bunch of marms out of the nursery tank and put them in one of my baby minnow tanks.. i moved the recent mother kreb back to a 55 gallon tank with minnows, and today i found that she's in berry again! i was using the first kreb to see how they might work as feed for my fish, and if i get a few breeding size, i can grow plenty.. and these might end up being the money maker for my system (at least a nice trade item)

almost had a hsm last night..
i've had a few seizures over the years, i've had all kinds of tests, x-rays, mri's, cat scans etc.. but they've never really figured out what the cause is.. anyways, i had one last night in the kitchen, my head broke the 1/4" plate glass dining room table (i can do karate in my sleep! ha)
well.. after the excitement of having the emt's visit (by then i was ok) i was just relaxing and was thinking i'd just go to bed, but decided i'd shut the extra lights off in the basement - the growbeds are all on timers - and i noticed that the sump was as full as i've seen it, and i didn't hear any water running.. turns out one of my 6 outlet power strips fried.. replaced it and water was flowing.. glad i decided to check, aerators were still running in the pool, and the fish are fine - i threw in 50 or so emerald shiners yesterday as a treat before harvesting today, but i think i'm going to relax and not try today.. if i do i'll take some pic's

glad to hear that you and your ap system are doing fine besides the power strip problem.

i removed the 2 tomato plants and the cowpeas, and will probably remove the cuke's and cantaloupe today.. i "thought" i'd have time for hand pollenating and training the plants to go where i want..
anyways, i friend was cleaning out his grandfather's garage/yard, and gave me a bunch of pvc pipe, and a couple blue barrels.. so i've been thinking about replacing all my small air pumps with one large pump.. i've got a total of about 30 air stones
has anyone used 1" (25mm) pvc to distribute air? if so, what are you connecting the airlines to the pvc with? i'll probably go with a linear air pump, but still investigating air pump options