Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Actually, there's only seven billion of us, so we were bound to bump into each other again sooner or later

Sorry if you've been waiting for more learning adventures on the blog.

My education's been a little slow of late.

Actually I'm still learning, I just haven't been blogging about it.

I had a bit of a tummy ache for the last few years, so I've had to take some time out from the learning and blogging thing, but I think the epic solar River Murray trip might actually happen some time relatively soon.

In fact I'm 99% sure of it.

That's a lot of percents!

Part of the reason I'm feeling so sure the epic River Murray adventure really will take place, is because recently Mrs BullwinkleII and I volunteered our time to make a website for the Morgan Living River Festival, and as a result I found myself on a putt putt boat (traditional wooden working boat that gets it's name from the fact that you can count the RPM of their motors that rev out to only around two strokes per second and make an awesome "putt putt" sound as they cruise the river at walking pace).

120 sparks per minute!

Curiously, but not intentionally the same as the number of things I want to learn within that 20 year time frame!

Curious.

And unless I can also travel backward in time, unintentional.

The Morgan Living River Festival (plug plug) is a bit of a thing to celebrate old wooden Putt Putt boats, and paddle steamers.

This year, the PS Marion, and the PS Oscar "W" (restored steam powered paddle boats (ships?) will both be there as well as the Putt Putts.

The paddle steamers do cruises along the river so you can get on board, watch steam engines work, and freak out at how cool humans were back before traffic jams were invented, and back when that thing that spins around with two golf-ball sized weights on the end of it's arms actually had a use, and weren't just there to make overalls look necessary.

These volunteer's overalls are necessary.

These ships are the real deal.

All fire and steam and paddle wheels and stuff.

And scones.

The Morgan Living River gig is to raise money to restore the PS Canally (a paddle steamer that is a hull and a wheel (as seen toward the end of the video on the website) to it's former glory, so if you happen to be in the vicinity, drop in for the weekend or a few hours, say hello and eat and drink some stuff. There will also be wine tasting, various stalls, food, paddle steamer type activities, and exhibitions of interesting stuff.

The highlight of the weekend is the dinner and entertainment on the Saturday night (14th May) so book a table or a chair. Sorry this is turning into too much of a plug for the gig. But it's all non profit and for a good cause (if you think making boats float, and eating and drinking is a good cause (which you do)).

So go there and say hello.

To make contact, just walk around shouting your BYAP username at the top of your lungs, give the secret BYAP fishy handshake, or just get a table somewhere near the bar and wait.


Anyway, as a result of this river connection from last year (and 45 years before that via a friend of my oldest brother), we found ourselves on a very laid-back, and enjoyable Putt Putt cruise with two friends for a few hours on a beautiful bit of the river I had never seen before - somewhere a few km west of the South Australian border.

The stretch of river has cattle stations (I think) on either side, so there are no towns and might mean one might not see another person for maybe a week or more of cruising as there's no shacks, and it's a bit too long a stretch for the houseboat rentals to bother with.

Anyway...

I took one look at this most awesome bit of the universe, and realized I'd better finally get around to mounting the solar panels to my little electric boat and get underway.

And also buy an emergency personal locator beacon.

I must remember to buy an emergency personal locator beacon.

But truly, truly awesome country.

I had no idea it was even there.

And the river has enough nutrient that growing my baby spinach in my little boat's grow tubes will be a breeze.

The Murray River has cycled. I know, because I testing it. I guess it's been there long enough.

Anyway, a truly awesome bit of the universe.

And free.

Free as in free beer, and also free as in "Hey! look at that middle aged bearded man running free over there!".

In this most pleasant bit of the universe, you couldn't move more than 0.009525 iteru[?] without seeing another perfect campsite waiting to be slept on, a photograph waiting to be taken, or a Perch waiting to be fished, and it made me realize that the sooner I do the trip, the sooner I can do it again.


Which is nice.


If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing again.

I always say that.

I always say that.



Hurry me.... Hurry!

.

A while back I meant to mention something when raising fry...

I was using a thin aquarium air hose to siphon some water out of the bowl the goldfish fry were in, and found they have absolutely no fear when it comes to being sucked up into the tube.

They could easily resist the current, but seemed to be willing to give it a go and see where it ended up.

The outside diameter was only 5mm or 6mm, so the inside diameter is pretty small and thus the water flow wasn't fierce by any means.

So I suspect fry like to travel when they get the chance even though their itinerary would be like that of someone suggesting you step into a wormhole for a vacation.

I lost quite a few to the vacuum cleaning/water change tube.

After I had discovered they were getting through I would always check the drained water before dumping it into the garden, and would often discover that some were dead or a bit broken as a result of getting suctioned up into the tube.


just something to look out for


.

I'm back on the prescription opiates, so I have no idea of the merit/originality etc of this but I was reading my own blog (google thinks I'm very interested in it so it often comes up in my search results) and found this when searching for the word "thinking", and wondered if I had covered it here. It looks like it might work as a low energy system...




Put a stack of air stones into a grow bed under the gravel.

Flood the grow bed constantly, and connect it to a fish tank so water can move freely between the two.

Each time the air is turned on for a few seconds, water is displace by the air, and the water level of the grow bed rises.

The water then overflows into the fish tank.

The air stops, and new water from the fish tank flows back until the two are back to the same level.

Repeat as required to turn over the fish tank water every hour.



Maybe.

sorry if this is a repeat.

So essentially air pump on a timer instead of a water pump on a timer.

yeah, but with the air under the grow media

I have no idea if it would work, but if you put a stack of air into the flooded media, the water level would rise and overflow into the fishtank (built level with the grow bed).

Add a check valve for the out pipe, and another for the in pipe, and it might work.

By all means try it but I recon the air will find the easiest rout to the top and make no difference
As I say report back on your triumphs and failyers [spelling]so others can learn

I like the way you think, and write. I used to be a decent thinker and writer, maybe. These days I seem to be only able to muster short sentences (and spruce it up with funny colors) so it it is a pleasure to read your thought train

As described, I think you'd just get a very small 'blorp' of water moving across each time you put a burst of air in, and then you'd need to cut it off long enough for the water to settle a bit... you'd stir up the bed and definitely have no problems with solids going anaerobic, but I think any benefit would be outweighed by the solids getting flushed into the fish tank. Plus I really don't think you'd be able to set up enough of a flow to turn the fish tank over.

If you put a divider down the middle of the grow bed, on the other hand, with a narrow gap down at the base of the bed, and then had the airstones only on one side of the divider and ran them continuously, you might be able to set up an in-growbed airlift. Have the intake from the fish tank on the side without the airstones, and the outflow to the fishtank on the side with them, and the flow might be reasonable. No idea how well plants would grow in continuously aerated gravel, though!

I will watch with interest if anyone ever tries this, but really it'd be simpler to just do a standard airlift from the fishtank...

Thanks boss.

Mel, Food&Fish - yep.

I think I could work with some kind of air catcher like a sheet of rubber or a balloon or something with a slow leak in it, placed into a divided off section.

But I agree there are easier ways to do this aquaponics thing, but.... it's me here

I've been running a small fishtank on my desk for 9 months just by 1/3 filling it with clay ball media with a gap under it where I draw water up with a small airlift made of a length of 12mm poly pipe, and have not done a water change yet. All my tests show zero (nitrates are around 10-20) They have some duckweed growing on the surface which they eat, and I feed them flake goldfish food. (they are goldfish)

I love the way almost everything works.

It seemed so complicated when I set up my first little system. I must miss the complication so I keep coming up with more complicated ways to do it, although this idea was from some time ago.

We still don't have bees at our place, so if anyone feels like buying me one of these, feel free

https://www.honeyflow.com.au/pages/how-flow-works

Awesome brain work. I've been vaguely working on a solution for home bee keeping for years and never got anywhere. Not even a hint of a direction to work towards.

To quote Ian Dury, "There aint 'arf been some clever bastards."


Does everyone else have bees again? Is it just my area that doesnt? I get a swarm every year looking to live in the vents in the walls of my house, but I have to pollinate everything by hand because we almost never see any bees. The result is I've given up growing everything but salad leaves.

My mother bought a Flow hive - I think in the initial kickstarter push, or right after - and she's in touch with a local beekeeper to get her a swarm as soon as things get moving in Spring.

We get a reasonable number of bees here - not as many as we did a few years ago, but more than we did early last year. Hopefully the numbers will keep increasing! I'm planting more flowers to attract them, and of course having a fishpond that they can drink from in hot weather without risking drowning helps a lot.

"To quote Ian Dury, "There aint 'arf been some clever bastards."" Love Ian Dury. Is he still with the Blockheads?

Why didn't people like Captain Cook tie up a shipload of crocodiles to take back as food for the trip home? They are delicious, and last for ever in a tied up state (sorry vegans).

They stay alive/fresh for a year or something without food. (actual reality may differ from that depicted). They seem like they would have been the ideal protein to take on a ship when going on a long and uncertain journey.

Also this...

How can you raise organic vegan food?

You cant use petro-chemical based nitrogen like most of the farming world because it doesn't do so well on the organic scale, and you cant use blood&bone, or enslaved animal poop. Charlie carp is not even slightly on the cards, so what do you do?

You can grow legumes for a few years to drop nitrogen into the soil/system, but I don't think we can live on plants that have only been raised on nitrogen.

I can raise a chicken to market size on nothing but white rice, but I suspect it might be made entirely of only the nutrients in white rice. So... not a lot.

For example, did you know chicken was once a decent source of omega three fatty acids? Back when they ate food.

I suspect we need either non-organic sources of other nutrients, or things like dead animal products to give us what we need.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I really need to know this stuff and would always rather than be seen as stupid rather than wrong the next time I bang on about this stuff.

Vegans?

Anyone?

Anyone?

https://youtu.be/f4zyjLyBp64

I have 2 presumptions about organic vegan fertaliser:

1) Most of them wouldn't understand that there are animal products in their vegetables. I know I've blown a few greeny's minds when I've pointed out that geothermal electricity is nuclear power...

2) Perhaps the truly dedicated among the vegans use collected wild/native animal waste as fertaliser - or their own... The vegans I've worked with a certainly full of it!