Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You sure Bear ??
Can work around your schedule **nods**



I have daughters that are more than happy to do all the vacuuming I want in exchange for screen time

Water has been steady around 16-18° here in the mornings & goes anywhere up to about 22°C by the afternoon..

Would like to stop by & see both you & Bear + your systems if I make it back up that way with no distractions in the back seat
Cheers Chaps..

No worries mate, with or without the back seat dwellers all good around here, were only 25 minutes from the beach at Caloundra so the youngsters would no doubt enjoy that

Hows everything going Rob?

Hi there Charlie..
Fish are still swimming, plants are growing, slowly..
Got loads of fruit on the pepino bush & am really surprised they are growing so well in the cold..

I find it funny that it all started as a cutting shoved into the clay just to see how they'd go

Am looking at re working the grow bed arrangement for the AP now so haven't replaced any of the pipe work yet.. Will also be replacing the grow beds with some made from flat sided IBCs.. I think these ones are still collecting a lot of solids in the low points & am not happy with the siphon set up either..
I am getting more IBCs to start the fish farm so will have some extras to play around with for the other jobbies..
Haven't harvested any more jades yet.. They are still feeding well & the water temp have been staying over 16°c most of the time.. There are about 10 or so out of the 26 left that look to be around the 500g mark..

Cheers Charlie..

Thanks for the update Rob. Your pepino's are very impressive. I had a really good pepino growing last year but our blistering summer ended its life unfortunately. I love them and would like to try again some time.

Here's a bit of of an update clip on the system..
Rambled on about some of the new plans I have in mind for the renovations..



Took that clip Friday morning & found this when we went down this morning..




Posted a tread on it here on BYAP as well..
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=17414&p=403289&hilit=swimbladder#p403289


Cheers peoples..

Been missing your updates Rob, hope all is well. Been interested in a couple of things... have you changed your grow beds to get away from the rippled areas as you mentioned? Did I spot a pepino in your grow bed and how has it faired? And lastly, have you harvested and eaten any of the Barcoo's?

Cheers mate

Yep & you ?


Nope


Has been growing well



At last count 8 have come out.. Very happy with them so far so will stocking the FF with them as well (if I ever pull me thumb out & make a start on it)..


Back at ya Charlie

**Wanders off to grab some clips...**

Had a few visitors form the neighbourhood take an interest in the system over the past 3 or so weeks.. Little buggers were pinching strawberries
Started to sort them out quick smart though


Have caught about 8 so far... Little buggers found the tomatoes I had drying at the back door last night & had a good nibble.. Think they are looking for safer feeding grounds so will have to set up traps under the house now.. Think they have come from the neighbours yard now that the grass is being kept in check & some of the debris taken away..

Did an update clip on the system as a whole last night if your interested in how she be running..



In short, it is booming with the early summer we have gotten here.. Is going to be a shame to pull some of the plants when we move the beds around..

Talking of moving beds, anyone got any pointers on slowing a system down (other than laying off the feed) so as not to stress the bacteria & fish out too much ?
Will need to give the clay a good wash as it is fairly murky at the bottom of the 2 beds that will be moved..
Cheers all & thanks for prod Charlie..

You don't want to slow the system down without reducing the feed. Reducing the feed is about the only thing you can do to help you avoid a spike if you are planning to disrupt the system much.

Now if you can divert the murky water away as you rinse things, that may help you avoid some spikes and stressing the fish. Perhaps you could also set up some additional filtration to catch some of the excess solids as you are doing the disruption.

Hi TCLynx
The beds will be taken off line altogether as I am making up new ones due shape of the base of the current ones.. They aren't flat & were collecting loads of solids before the RFF was included into the system.. All the water used for the wash out will be going onto the wicking beds after it has been aerated for 24 hours..

Am hoping to double the size of the current RFF to about 100L/26½gal & it will be running in line with the grow beds, not parallel to them as it has been while waiting for the re build.. I am thinking of using the existing RFF to filter the water running back into the FT for a little while just as a precaution now after your comment, Thanks

Nice setup. I like the videos. If a picture can say a thousand words, video can speak volumes!

Cheers Dave

ah if you are putting the NEW beds online before you go cleaning out the Old beds, No worrys mate. Relax you are probably over thinking this unless you are really pushing your stocking levels. Just keep in mind that if you don't give the new beds time to cycle up before taking old beds offline and doing the clean out, you will have to watch for spikes since you won't have as much bio-filter handy as you do that. Removing solids with RFF doesn't remove the need for bio-filtration, it only lessens it a little bit.

As long as the fish are not suffering oxygen deprivation because of huge amounts of organic debris in the water being broken down, most types of fish don't mind a little bit of murk and some actually prefer it. (Trout are probably the exception to this)

Same media is being used, totally new beds are being built though.. I have a few tanks of clean water I will be washing the media off (& probably a fair amount of the bacteria as well) then putting it into the new beds..
Will still have 1 bed out of the 3 online so there will be some bacteria left in the system to help boost the numbers again..

Most definitely over thinking it Had these fellers since fingerling & don't want to lose any now due to a silly mistake on my part..
Only have 22 x 400-500g Jades in there at the moment (1600l/422gal water 900+/237+gal of media) so think the stocking rates are fine..
Was going to work on a re mineralisation tank but think I might make up a bio filter first & throw that inline before I move the GB's about.. Mmmmm....

Also thinking about changing the way the fish farm will be set up as well so I can add another FT to the AP system
Would like to have both projects sorted out before I start moving the beds....

More coffee is needed methinks..

Thanks for the advice TCLynx, Really appreciate it