Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I just bought a new office from bunnings for a hundred bucks



Once I make a small adjustment to my stand, the blue barrel should fit across the back, leaving the shelves for NFT tubes and enough room for a laptop and office chair.

I'll eventually set up 2 IBC's out side, and keep this for seed raising, and a few winter salad things we like to always have on hand. The blue barrel will also be the fry tank, and I might heat it to give the little guys a head start/keep me warm.

And depending on how warm it gets, somewhere to work from.

No doubt the plastic will go bye bye although bunnings says its uv groovy. Who knows, but the frame is actually pretty good, better than I could do for 100$, especially with the internal shelving and all. I figure I'll just recover it when I need to.

I might get another one for a snail farm.

Myt duckweed is hungry, but TC said I wasn't allowed feed it.

TCLynx, a while back you said goat dung was a bad idea to feed my duckweed with, does this look like it might be ok instead?

Or anyone else that knows stuff, feel free to wade in.



Why are you leaning over like that? are you sleepy?

Bullwinkle... duckweed feeds primarily on ammonia...

If the idea of adding hummonia doesn't appeal to you... just throw a few granules of urea into the duckweed container every now and then...

Duckweed growth will slow during winter anyway... regardless...

The nitrate in that fertilizer will be wasted on the duckweed but a small amount of it might provide some of the other things probably needed but as Rupe notes, urea granules will take care of the ammonia need.

I would personally probably bottle some pee and age it into hummonia (aging it to kill off any pathogens) and use small doses of that and perhaps a splash of seaweed extract to increase the potassium but that is just me.

The goat dung would need to be composted properly or heated to kill off pathogens before use if you are planning on adding the duckweed into your food system.

Oh ok cool, thanks.

I thought it ate some ammonia but mainly ate nitrates.

Humonia it is.

I quite like this glass house caper.

toasty warm. I cant wait to be out there when it's raining.

12c max outside 33c max inside

fish tank got up to 16c and the silvers woke up.


And this morning....

4c air temp inside and out

8c water temp inside
4c outside (topup dechlorination water tank)

mmm which reminds me, I added cold topup water yesterday as well so my FT might have even been warmer.

I cant wait to meet all my new friends.

Anyone have any idea what these are?

Other than eggs.

They are all over the baby spinach

hum

BWII



Definitely snail eggs!
Cheers IanK

+1 snail eggs

sago

They are too small for our standard pest/delicious snail helix aspersa. And that snail lays eggs in soil. There is a native snail eating snail, but I have never seen it. I hope it is the carnivorous one. Ill start a new business as of the day the hatch if it is.

The eggs are really small, like a course powder between your fingers, strange feel to them as well, really tough, they feel like silicone or something. Whatever they are there sure are going to be a lot of them. I hope they're friendly

I guess Ill find out soon enough.

I going with sago for now.

I found this experiment interesting...

My tired little pump cant pump for than 30 cm or so higher than it does now, but I wanted to try running a hose as a solar heater through the top of the hothouse and then back to the system.

I connected it to the little pump, and ran the length of hose flat until all the air had been removed, then I stood the middle of the hose up and stuck it to the roof. Keeping the inlet and outlet at the same height. and at GB level.

it works well and is putting only slightly less water in, spite of pumping another metre high. (but siphoning (ish) on the way back down)

I knew it would work, but was still surprised when it did

it looks gracefully like this...



and the outlet looks like this...



The flow looked like this before...



So I dont think it cost me much at all. The siphon still does its thing without adjustment.

The temperature has already hit 16c at 3pm so I think I may gave gained something. Its difficult to tell because the flow is so much that at stays cool. I need to divert just a tiny amount to go up so I can check how much heat its picking up.I might just tun it down for a half hour and see what I get.

[its another 12c day outside]

Kill them, kill them, kill them all..........



Me? No, I don't have a problem with slugs...