Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Things have been going well since the big loss. I've had one other floater, and i've been battling to keep the water clear so that I don't have a 40 fish repeat. Plants and fish are growing, albeit slowly.




This was from the day I lost 40. Really bad scene that.




Almost too bad to post.

G'day Gemmel,

Ugly photos for sure, but thanks for the warts and all show and tell. The bubbles floating on the surface look like an indicator of changed viscosity/surface tension in the FT. Probably indicating a pH lower than the indicated 6.8 or the presence of a wetting agent (detergent like effect)??

And thanks heaps for letting me visit and see your system t'other day, my daughters are planning to steal your dog.

Our planning for the trial system has progressed with site chosen, materials selected and some materials acquired. It will be fairly large for a trial at about 40,000L total system volume, but we need the temp and associated stability that volume will provide, and space is not an issue. The trial system will be a hybrid flood and drain gravel to DWC raft (UVI style). Plan to use the gravel/hydroton GB's as solids filters for the DWC section. Won't be pushing this system hard until it stabilizes and I get a handle on it.............??

Still undecided about timers vs auto siphons, but will probably run auto siphons due to the constant flow required in the DWC beds. Haven't figured out if the DWC beds will be adversely affected by a constant but variable flow due to the random/variable timing of the auto syphons drainage. Perhaps I should start my own thread and rely on the collective wisdom of this forum! Not sure where to post it though, under members systems, or commercial systems?

Members will be fine

Thanks F&F, will do.

I have been adding water ager when doing water top ups which seemed to cause the bubble effect. My brother said it might also be a protien build up. I'm setting up a 500L in 500L out barrel system so that I age water in a 500L tank, pump water out of my main tank to another tank in the garden, then just let the 500L water that's been sitting for 2 days into the tank. That way I can measure and treat water (whatever that might be) before it goes in. I also know how much goes out and how much goes in.



No worries at all, anytime. I'm only too happy to show you around.

Definitely. Especially if you can get a google sketch up happening - the guys here will pull it apart and offer great advice. The more you get right now, the less expensive rework you have to do later.

My second HSM:
I f’d up this morning and left for work and my GF came out the back and noticed that water was running down our driveway…. I’d left one of the taps open and every time the pump turned on it poured out onto the garden. Thankfully she'd caught it nice and early and we hadn't lost that much water. Dump in the 500L that's sitting in the B* tank being dechlorinated and hope.

The worst part is that we're going on a 4 day hike starting lunch time today, so I would have returned 4 days later to 100 trout (probably dead) in a couple of cm of water. So thank god you were there Ele! Saved me a massive HSM.

It's good practice for her, since I'm going away for 7 weeks in June and she's going to have to look after the system.

better buy the girl some flowers or something Gemmel, she deserves a frackin medal

Woot, no losses over the 4 days I was away. How good is that! Bro came around and fed them every second day, no problems.

My pro system is going well. Haven't had to deal with frost or sub zero temps yet. I'm away for 2 months starting 11th July though, so we'll see how well it goes then =)

The fish feed like crazy:



I've had some problems with clarity - it all started when I put seasol in, and then it just got darker and darker. However it's clearing up now:


Nitrites are still about:


But the plants are going well (photos taken a week apart):


In that first photo I've harvested a whole bag of rocket just to thin it out a bit. As you can see, it's bounced right back.

Those Trout appear to have grown heaps if the photos from mid may are from the same angle/distance. Any weights?

The photos are deceptive because they're taken close up, they're still pretty small. I'm no good at weight guesstimates, but I reckon some are a handspan long.

Hrrm. I have an idea. If I can get a plastic ruler and somehow attach it in system, then I just have to wait for an opportune moment when the fish swims past the ruler, take a photo and then I'll tell you exact sizes..... too much effort though.

HOld....<time passes>

Ok, so this is what I tried:




So I reckon some of them are at least 15cm... I might try this method again tomorrow morning when they're feeding heavily.

I'm back from a 2 month sabbatical in the middle east, europe and north america. Meanwhile the girlfriend has been looking after the system, and remarkably, we had zero losses.

The unfortunate thing is that my old system, which was going absolutley gang busters - she turned the pump off and forgot to turn it back on, and all 50 fish died. She was very upset and my heart went out to her. The biggest fish was 22cm long (which was a monster compared to the others).

Anwyay, this pro system is in tact - it's not doing aweseome though. The fish have white on their fins (looks a bit like fin rot) so I've dosed it up on salt. The pH is really low (my kit only goes down to 6), so I'm going to have to get some shell grit tomorrow (once I find out where you get it). The plants look like they're suffering a bit of <something> deficiency, but I'm not sure what, could also be the really low pH thats doing it. Growth was fantastic, the beds were exploding with stuff, including lots of weeds.....

But all in all, for someone who isn't an APer, she did admirably, I now have 100 trout when I fully expected to have 0.

What plants have you got growing Gemmel... they might benefit from a Potassium boost...

In which case you could get some EcoRose... Potassium BiCarbonate... and solve your buffering problem as well...

Yeh, been using eco-rose for a while - it's just really expensive is all. I've gone through a whole box already. GF hasn't been adding much, which might be why the pH is so low. I've added whats left (unfortunately there wasn't much) and hopefully that'll get it by until tomorrow. Is $20 for 40kg shell grit a good price? Should I add it to my beds or the tank (it'll probably get moved into the middle and pumped onto the beds anyway).