Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Zman It is 1 1/2" pipe.

Earthbound My cousin has a AP garden bigger than mine and I did my design sorta like his. He has not said much about having root bound problems at t he drains and his system is about two years old and still has some of his original tomato plants and are still producing.

Today I found a dead catfish so did a salinity test and added salt to get closer to 1.003 than I am. When I tested the first time it was 1.001 so added about 4 lbs of salt and will check in an hour or so. Will not rush it this time. They are growing fine cause he was about double what I put in for length.

I also did the water test and now I finally have a change in Rates to about 5.0 again. Thought it would never start changing.

To some of you Ozzies I have a couple of questions? I did not pick up the meaning while lurking the site.
First what is a UTE?
Is that like, The English apparently use the term for any size of truck, and call it "A Lorie". Is it the same in Oz. Here we use the term Pickup for any thing from 500 pound payload to about 3 tons in that same basic layout. Trucks are usually special like dump trucks and are measured by yards or bigger rigs. Everyone calls their pickup a truck also. I drive a Toyota Tundra which I call a truck even tho it is a pickup.

Second Please explain as I assume it is a slang term, A dead fish was "Karking it"?

I know it probable is "English" but I don't speak English I speak Southwest American. Thanks for the explain.ation

Utes here in aus are pickup trucks basicley a car but instead of 4 doors they have 2 doors then behind the backseat theres eather a tub or a tray normally 6ft by7 ft
As for carking it its dyiny like in lying on the ground gasping for air or if you are a fish water
thats a general idea

Ok. Thanks F&F, Here we had the El Camino which was a car type vehicle and a pickup bed on the back. Low payload capacity. It was not quite big as a pickup but sure got popular when they quit making them. Some had the largest motors and they were also part of the Muscle Cars.

El Camino
http://www.acpathope.org/student%20sites%202009/Unnamed%20Site%2011/elcamino.htm

Yep the above is similar style to our Holden (GM) and Ford utes. Nearly all Holdens and Fords have Ute versions of all their Models.
We also refer to 4X4 such as the Landcrusers as utes (if they have a tray on back).
Our large freight vehicles (6 wheelers) etc (Mack, Kenworth) are refered to as trucks.
Some more Aussie slang for interest would be,
Dead horse (tomatoe sauce)
Trouble and strife (wife)
Tin lids (kids)
This is more of the rhyming slang which doesnt seem to get used as much these days.
Another popular slang is to relate a name to something as below.
Harold Holt (to bolt) (to disappear), This came from Harold Holt (once PM of Australia, who mysteriously disappeared whilst swimming at the beach never to be found).
In Perth we have a traffic Tunnel named after the famous footballer Polly Farmer, it is now refered to as the Polly Pipe (polly pipe being agricultural polethene pipe).

Isn't slang strange sometimes? At least you know where most of yours came form. Lots of ours is so old no one remembers who or what started it.
Spouse is sometimes the (WAR DEPARTMENT) or (THE BETTER HALF) in my case.
Kids are (Rug Rats)

This morning I counted 3 tomatos growing fast.

I still wish sometimes for an El Camino.

I wanted to ask what are Chooks? Chickens, ducks, or geese?

Do we have a chart somewhere that shows what plants like or dont like salt in the water?
It seems like I have to keep 1.003% salt to keep my fish from dying. It also kills or retards lots of plants and I dont know which is going to not like salt.

What is a swirl filter and how is it used. I saw picture of one on here with no explaination as to what it does or how it works. It was a bucket with 4 90o fittings in the bottom fed from the center.

A chook is a chicken

Mantis
Does that cover all chickens or just a particular kind?
I was taking a read on the Arid patch blog also. Did you add a new system or change out the old one for a new one? Looks good to me.

A chook is any chicken, young or old, all breeds.. And in case you are wondering, it's pronounced like book or look, rather than shoot or boot..

The info regarding swirl filters and salt-tolerant plants is easily found using the search. I've looked them both up in the last few months.

I found some info on the swirl filters but still do not understand what they are for in a normal AP garden. Is it for use when the GB are not being used? to replace the GB as the filtration in a setup?

G'day Don

Thanks for the comments back on my thread. Yeah aquatic biology has always been something I've been interested in so it makes a nice combination of interest + practical application.

Yeah, it's an interesting observation. Powerouts are certainly not that uncommon in the Perth hills, but I've been there 16 or so years now and cannot recall anything lasting more than a few hours, prior to that 30 hour loss a few months back. So while it was a bad one relatively, it pales in comparison to the something lasting several weeks like you're talking about. That would certainly change how we lived for a while !!