Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey Joc, nearly as warm here, 31C ATM with 34C forecast, and 33C tomorrow, before "cooling down" to 29C on Thursday and the following 4 days. My buried tanks have helped keep the temp below 20C so far, but I suspect I'll go over that this arvo.

Re the ice, you might need more than you expect - 50kg of ice will cool 6000l of water by about 1C. I've been busy making ice for the past week and have over 80kg in the freezer now.

Yay my fish are still alive and seem happy enough. But the plants in the towers are very sad as I bypassed them this morning and we have gusty hot northwesterly wind hitting them head on. Floated 2 x 5kg bags of ice in thd FT this morning before heading for work. Just diconnected the tower collection pipe and gave the towers a water. Will reconnect everything this evening when the change comes through.

If your contract indicates that you have 2 weeks of payed leave, which than includes sick leaves for your family. I your employer is nice they might give you some unpaied leave on top of it..
I am lucky to be Boss ( best of all sh.. shoveler ) and have some lee-way how I spent my time. But with the Ranch, horses and business in town it is at the present 2 weeks every 5 years and even that requires some major organization and planning.
Germany is 30 working days, which excludes week ends and holidays in the count, 5x6 working days plus the week ends and holidays that are in that time period. Sick days during vacations, need the attest from a veterinarian, do not count.
We still have a lot of catching up to do, to become civilized

Been too busy to get on the Forum now that I am back at work full time (oh, those 7 months off seem so long ago now... )

Its 6 weeks since the nasty heatwave and thank goodness the weather has been cooler. Been steadily working our way through trout for dinner most weekends. Haven't had any for the last few weeks, so was surprised by this whopper I pulled out in the 'lucky dip' this arvo .




The plastic container in the rear left of the fish tank has a camera in it so that I can spy on the fish from my tablet . The temperature probes are all set up and hooked up to the raspberry pi, but there is some techno voodoo that needs to be done so that we can see it via the web.

Did a big clean up last weekend and pruned back the crimson glory vine to let some light into the growbed. Scattered rocket and coriander seeds from the towers. Will throw in some basil seed (thanks Colmn) as well. Did my first water test in 2 months. Ammonia and nitrites were zero, pH was below 6 and nitrates were above 160 and the strawberry leaves looked anemic. I did a water change, added a bit of wood ash liquor, and added some iron chelates & seasol. The fish get a sprinkle of pellets most mornings (when I remember) unless its going to be hot. I am down to my last ~600g of pellets, so that was a fortuitous calculation for the season.



The towers need a good clean out after more seed has matured. Not sure how that will go and whether I will have to replace the bird netting . Some of the strawberries survived the winter and the few fruits are quite nice. Will replace the dead ones with alpine strawberries as they are intense little bundles of strawberry nectar, and the chooks and labrador can't reach the towers.


Well that's it for now

Jo

It blew that hard last night that it took out one of my towers. I checked out the window this morning to see water pouring out the gap where the tower was supposed to be. Lucky the water mostly blew into the growbed behind the towers or dropped into the slot in the collection pipe. The top of the pump was exposed in the sump. Helluva way to do a water change! Hope I didn't scare the neighbours and passing traffic too much climbing up the garden furinture with my dressing gown flapping in the wind trying to turn the tower inlet tap off

You know the rules, photos of you fixing it, or it didn't happen!

Glad you got to it before any really bad things happened!

Hi jo
all my trout were dead at 4am when went out to check after the wind had eased im in Tinamba all 24 gone power was out or 15 hours so it looks like ive got plenty of bait for beach fishing

Bummer Sargent, the power dipped a few times here in Maffra but stayed on. I heard there were a lot of trees down out on the Maffra-Tinamba Road. There are only 5 large trout left in the FT and the backup air is in the same state as the remote temperature monitoring - nearly there but not quite...
Do I know you, or do you know me?


Gordon, it definitely did happen (no dressing gown selfies though )




The strawberries on the right look really sad (deceased mostly) as they were buried under the giant celery plants in the tower that blew down. I need to spend some time replanting towers. Good news is that the rocket seeds are sprouting in the growbed and I have now tossed in some coriander and tuscan kale seed from the garden as well.

Only two weeks to go before we take possession of our new rural property near Cowwarr, which opens a whole range of possibilities

Not sure i no you but I've spent a fair bit of time in your back yard
it was a wild night alright thought the roof was going to blow off
made a hell of a mess ive been in this house for bout 7years never had wind that strong
and as for the power its never stayed out for more than a hour or two
think i might of woken all the neighbors at 4am with some very bad language when i lifted the FT lid was not verry happy

So last Wednesday, the forecast was for mid 30s followed by 3 days of 40C. I decided that there was no way the remaining 5 trout would last until Christmas as I had hoped, so I processed them. A wise decision, as not only was it blast furnace hot, when the cool change came today, the power went out for a few hours and my backup air is in the same state as my temperature monitoring

I can't remember who recently mentioned processing trout - great advice! I netted each one, tickled its belly until it was calm and lifted it slightly out of the water and whacked it on the head with the rolling pin. So easy, and so much easier than trying to hold down a strong slimy unhappy trout to iki jime it.

We had the 800g one on the new BBQ. I gill and gut it, slash each side in several places, then give it a dry rub of salt, dark brown sugar and lemon zest for a couple of hours, then rinse and wipe dry then BBQ. Delicious!
The other 4 are in the freezer for a post Xmas BBQ with my family.

I hope everyone else in SE Oz coped with the heatwave and fires and blackouts.

Stay safe and have a great Christmas.

Congrats on the trout,they look delicious,iam just a little jealous really so wish i could keep them here.

That doesn't read all that well, but I am sure there is perfectly innocent explanation.

Beautiful trout, they look really well proportioned, and tasty too. You planning to move your system to the new place or start fresh ?

That would be me, I'm glad to hear it worked so well for you too I've done a few dozen that way over the past couple of weeks.

coochy, coochy, coochy cooo, whack! Much less stressful for fish, and me!

I too am looking forward to how that plays out

Okay, so I am sure Sargent meant that figuratively, not literally Tinamba is just 8km west of Maffra...

Gordon, yes it was you, and that is exactly how it works - no stress at all . I lost track of what I had read. No internet yet at the new place so I only have limited opportunities to login to BYAP.

Dasboot, I am sure there are other lovely fish you can raise in tropical climes, but trout are pretty special and I must admit I am a bit smug about the results of my first AP season.

Rendang, I will probably dismantle the system and move the bits over to the new place, but do a better set up with more growbeds and have the towers over a growbed to avoid added complications of leaks. Love the new place, our plans keep changing and being changed by circumstance. Suddenly a trailer for the ride-on and a pole saw became essentials rather than 'nice-to-haves'. We are certainly going to get fit!!! Will post photos once the internet is on in mid/late Jan - maybe start another thread.

Have a lovely festive season and a great 2016