Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Time for an update! The weather has been conspiring against me (and then there was a week's worth of food poisoning, that was fun), but I managed to get some stuff done.

The sump tank cover is finally done! With hinges and everything!



Look, the hinges even work! And look, tons of algae. Hopefully the yabbies I'm going to get now that I can keep them from just walking off will eat most of it. (The shrimp are doing what they can, but it's a bit beyond their teeny-tiny capacities...) The reduced light will help too.



Also, the heron that's been hanging around fishing in my pond and eyeing the aquaponics can buzz off, because the fish tank cover is finished too.

how is the veg going. Guess its been pretty cool in the ACT.
(see you have your hoop house side up in photo)

Cold start here in WA means the tomatoes and chilli's are not going too well.
(Spinach and lettuce loving it).

The ends aren't up yet so there's not much point in having the flap down, especially since I haven't finished it and can't fasten it We're getting warmer though!

Things are pretty slow because yeah, it's cold, and I don't have enough fish - my nitrates are zero. I'm supplementing a little with Charlie Carp (added to the grow beds), but I've got to be careful with that because I don't want to cause a spike and kill my goldies. I'm not going to get more goldfish because they'll be moving back into the not-very-big fishpond once I get silvers, and I don't want to get silvers until after I have most or all of my grow beds filled. So the plants are a bit unhappy! My rainbow chard and the kale I planted for my husband (I'm sure as heck not going to eat it) are healthy but growing really slowly. Same with the broccoli except for the purple one, which is tiny and bolting to flower (wtf, broccoli, you are being ridiculous). Bunching onions and garlic chives are happy. Pretty sure my eggplant is going to die and the capsicum is looking sad but holding on. Tomatoes are flowering but not growing and looking a bit miserable, and the purple podded snow peas are sulking; I keep threatening to rip them out and replace them with the Yakumo Giant snow peas that are in my seedling tray and going gangbusters. (In fact, I might just do that tomorrow...)

Nice job there Mel Dunno how you are getting your tomatoes to flower at this time of year- it's way too cold here. Mine haven't grown much at all since the seedlings went in many weeks ago. I am still getting a few capsicums though

Thanks! I'm ridiculously proud of those covers (yaaaay they work!). I can't take credit for the tomatoes, I didn't do anything - mine haven't grown much either, but one has apparently decided "stuff this, I'm flowering". They're sitting in root pouches in the half-full growbed.

One of my tomatoes has decided to throw out a flower as well, only one... Makes no sense. The weather has been terrible.

The system is looking great Mel. Very tidy.

Hi Mel,

Getting tidier and tidier! :-)

I will really have to up my game and make the new setup next spring look really neat!


Cheers - Jens

Thank you!

Maybe our tomatoes figure they'd better flower now before things get worse and they die

I brought some siberian tomatoes from the big B and gave them a shot over winter.
Actually getting tomatoes off them against a brick wall but they are in dirt pots.
The AP ones didn't take.

I have concluded that they are only fruiting because they actually think they are in Siberia and anything above zero is as good as it gets...... problem is as far as tomatoes go they are pretty average tasting.

I suspect I will be spending more time getting envious reading F&F's postings about his new hot house.
wondering if I can build a 6m long, 0.6m wide hot house.

Ten yabbies arrived today, along with twenty firetail gudgeons!




SO CUTE!

Yeah they are

I hope they are disease-free if you are putting them in the same water as your existing and future fish. Might be worth giving them a bit of saline bath time, although I have no idea what concentration would be best/safe for yabbies or gudgeons.

I'm not sure either, so I just checked that they all looked healthy - no visible parasites or ich spots, etc. I'm running with some salt in the system. Fingers crossed!

Hi Mel,

Just finished reading your thread (so far!) and wanted to say thanks for sharing your build story! The hoop design seems like an excellent choice for a relatively inexpensive and customizable design. Well done!

Thanks! It was a lot of fun to build, and definitely something you don't need to be super fit or experienced to do.