Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Sadly it's funny, but true.

For some reason my Dr. doesn't get it

does anyone have any sound software to play speech backwards? That's definitely backwards me thinks.

I found a huge trunk of Monstera that someone had left to die on the side of the road. The trunk must be 12cm (4 1/2 inches) in diameter and maybe as tall as someone short like me, times two when you include the leaves.

Does anyone know anything about how to propagate it?

It has 6 large leaves that are still doing "ok ish" and one new leaf that's looking pretty healthy, and a stack of the roots that form all over the trunk.

It looks like I can cut the leaves and a foot of trunk off and plant it or just plant the entire thing, but what I would like to do is cut the trunk up into 5 portions or so and grow a few more if thats something I can do. There are a few roots in random places on the trunk, and maybe something that look like nodes that might turn into leaves at 2 or 3 places.

I know you can cut off a leaf with a root node and grow it out in water, but I have a stinking great hunk of a trunk that I thought might make for faster growth.

I haven't been able to find anything on the net that tells me how to deal with a trunk... Just leaves.

It's currently taking up a large portion of my bathroom, and all of my bath.

Anyone, anyone?

Hi Bullwinkle,

I had luck with striking one by just sticking it in the ground after a sheep had chewed a large plant off above the ground.

I just poked it in the ground and watered it.

So bathtub it is

for now

I have a fairly large landing net to bring in wild caught fish, and I was thinking of ways to make all my little fishies get an equal share at feed times.

I'm breeding goldfish of various sizes from 40mm up to around 200mm (8 inches), and feeding them slime and bulk goldfish flakes.

I leave the net in the water so they cant get into it, but so that most of it is submerged, then drop the food into the net. It spreads out straight away to the edges where everyone starts sucking on the net to pull the food through, and it seems to take a little effort. Some of it slowly falls through the bottom in tiny pieces so it seems that everyone gets a share.

It seems to work pretty well. I'm not sure if the larger fish are large because they are dominant, or just because once you get large you can get more food, so it will be interesting to see if it settles out the size differences.

How is your Monstera deliciosa fairing, Bully?

Regarding your strategy for trying to average out the size of your fish, I employ various but essentially similar strategies on my trout. The theory is sound, I reckon, but without a controlled experiment it's difficult to know with any certainty if the smaller fish actually make up any ground on the bigger ones.

All of the fish whisperers I've talked to say the grading thing definitely works.

The monstera was cut into 5 pieces, 2 of which went into the aquaponics system, and the rest (including the main stem with leaves on it, went into dirt pots.

Now, I run my system very safely and professionally by jamming the cord for my little system's pump (the one I won in the photo comp ages ago) between the non-existent gap in the back door of my house, and my house.

It turns out that's a stupid idea, because after year 3 or 4 (3 or 4 of jamming it in the door, but many more years of normal running), you cut through all the nice plastic stuff that keeps all the smoke from getting out from your electronics, and your house goes dark. (our houses go dark in Oz because we all have those earth groundy safety switch things so you can stick your tongue into a power outlet and hardly die at all.... which is nice.

Anyway, my pump died.

The two bits of monstera in the grow bed look a lot like dead rotten things after only a couple of days, but all my fish (gold goldfish) dont seem to care at all.

The fish are very understocked, with perhaps only 1.5kg of fishmeat in 1700L of water, and 500L of growbed media so O2 is the only issue, and I suspect goldfish would just get up, and walk away breathing air if they didnt like where they were living.

They seem as happy as a carp in a foreign river system regardless of the oxygen level. I dont think I'm even close to giving them a hard time, but I found a little $20 aquarium pump I bought ages ago for just this kind of situation, and it's doing a pretty good job of shifting water around.

My system is almost all of equal head between fishtank, growbed, and sump, so the pump doesn't need to do a lot.

So, of the 4 monstera in dirt (yeah I know, there's been a recount) 3 of what now turns out to be 5 (re-count re-count) look like they might live, but the others, and the two in the growbed look like they are deaders.

Which brings me neatly to my new question... (smooth segway )

There are these little flying insects who's life cycle seems to be either...

1. Hatch, and swarm around in a bit of space at mouth level in my backyard. Live, breed, and die (mostly in my mouth) all within the space of a motel mini-bar fridge (that's one metric mini-bar)

2. Hatch, and swarm around in a bit of space at motorcycle eye level in the middle of a perfectly good road. Live, breed, and die (mostly in my eyes) all within the space of a motel mini-bar fridge

Does anyone know what these things might be?

I just had a mouthful size swam of them spontaneously (like things used to before germ theory) pop into existence in a little moss garden terrarium I keep on my desk.

They look a bit like a mosquito to the naked eye (my eyes are always full of bugs so it's difficult to tell), but are only 1.2mm in length or so.

They taste like insects.

I put a little jumping spider in there, so now I'm enjoying a full on Ninja movie in the best 3D you ever saw.



I hate phone pics

And...(snap)... sleep.

Some gold, goldfishies...



Some very deep water culture tomatoes (once again just sitting in the fishtank water through the top of my IBC...



Some maidenhair fern that grew from seed (Quite a lot did) under some strawberries...



Some not so healthy mostera (monsteria?) in the aquaponics system with no pump for a few days...



And some of the same salvaged (found on the side of the road) plant in dirt...





And good luck to google images making sense of my spelling of of the word "nothing" in the titles of those files (I just checked and google coped just fine as always )

By the way, those goldfish are not gulping at the surface, they are just gulping at me.

They go into feeding frenzy mode when I get near, and they start randomly eating water, anything that floats, each other etc.

Gnats maybe?
Their behaviour certainly fits. Small swarms at head, mouth, eye height just to p!ss humans off.

yup G-nats, grab enough of them and they fry up like whitebait.

That would need to be nearly all of them on earth to make a mouthful.

When I said mouthful, I meant a mouthful where they could still fly around inside my mouth and go about their lives without actually noticing they were in captivity

In some strange way, on the other hand, you only need one to entirely fill an eye

Does the BYAP shop at the top of the site no longer exist, or is the link just broken?

I went out to check the fishies at 9:30pm and discovered a hose had fallen off the pump. Fishtank temp was 39c at 830pm!

Who knows what it was in the middle of the day.

One dead floater that I could see but there might be more on the bottom. I have the fishtank almost 100% full of weed for the fish to breed in so I cant see the bottom.

There were /are still fish swimming at the top where it's hottest.

Goldfish will take over the world.

I've been running the cooler water in the sump through the system ie reconnected the sump, and also put the garden hose on a fine mist spray over the fishtank for the last couple of hours and it's brought the temp down a bit, but now it's an all nighter to make sure nothing else happens.

agghh.

All because I didnt bother with a 20 cent poly pipe hose clamp.