Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey Signore! No - it all died so I have pulled it out and planted Asian Greens.

They seem quite happy and are doing well so far.



Does anyone know what is this white mould on my cucumber leaves and how to get rid of it?



Had my first harvest of lettuce the other day! Made a tasty salad and no one in the family was put off by the fact these were raised on pee-ponics lol!



I've been very slack with water testing lately as I was busy preparing for child #3's 1st birthday on the weekend.

But here are today's results:
pH = 7.5
Ammonia = 0.25ppm
Nitrites = 0ppm
Nitrates = 80ppm

That's Powdery mildew on the cucumber. A lot of people say it is caused by high humidity, but in my experience it is the exact opposite of that. It has been very hot and not rained for a month here, so extremely dry now, and the gourd in one of the WBs has got it, as have some button squashes in one of the GBs. No sign of any opn the cucumber or zucchinis at this stage though.

Diluted Potassium bicarbonate (main ingredient in Eco Rose (fungicide), but it is very expensive) might help, diluted milk has never helped here, and just wetting the leaves works as well as anything. If a leaf is very badly affected I carefully cut it off and take it away, trying to avoid spreading any spores over other plants.

Your plants are looking good. You have done a great job.

Can I get a woot woot!?!?

Look what the courier just delivered! Final piece of the puzzle...

Now I just have to figure out how to split these babies evenly between the FTs.

SydneyChick,

Woot! Woot! Woot!

Congratulations! It has really been neat seeing your plan come together.

Quite an accomplishment!

--
Sam

Ok but now I'm freaking out that these babies will just get sucked up by my SLO and end up in my
Grow beds. They're so tiny!



This is what the slits in my SLOs look like:



What do you guys reckon? If the slits are too big I was thinking I could slip some old stockings over the pipes to stop curious SP babies getting sucked up?

Meanwhile I have the bag of fish floating in the FT and every 20mins or so I open it up and add a cupful of FT water. Slowly acclimatising them...

I went ahead and covered the SLOs with a stocking.

Peace of mind!

Stocking will be fine for short term but will clog, gutter guard would be better long term or until the little fry get some size. Or maybe redo the SLO.

And congrats on the new family members!

Yeah, redoing the SLO would be the do it and fuhgeddaboudit solution. You can always save your existing SLO pipe and use it elsewhere or later, right? Imagine how you could focus entirely on this new phase in your aquaponic journey (FISH!) without having to fiddle with a high maintenance, lower-quality solution, that risks your new "babies". Something like this pipe used by TCLynx would work, right?



Another option would be to "fence" them off inside a portion of the tank, maybe make them a "fingerling" pen on the inside your tank with something like this?

Minnow Seine Net, 4' x 12', 1/4" Mesh


Here's how it's done with Hapas in Latin America...

Net Enclosure System for Oreochromis Niloticus Fingerling Production

That stocking was good thinking, but please consider it super temporary. For the good of the little ones!

--
Sam

Arrrghh! *expletive expletive*

I was afraid you guys would say that. Oh well - at least I haven't released the fingerlings yet.

How long can they survive in the plastic bag while I redo the SLO?

Release them and turn off pumps they will Easley last 2 or three days as long as you are not feeding

I'm hoping to get the new SLOs in by tonight. Can they last that long with me periodically opening the bag, introducing fresh air and adding water from the FTs?

Can you put them in a big net with the rim above the water? Dont have to worry about continually messing around with plastic bags then.
I'd just poke/cut small holes in the stocking, <5mm, over the pipe holes so that the poo can get sucked out, and check it every few days until you get a hang of how long it takes to partially clog, rather than making another SLO. You will need this one when they get larger.

Also note that because you have widely dispersed and a lot of holes, the water velocity wont be very high, so unless the fish go looking for holes to hide in, you probably wont lose any down the pipe.
None of the over 400 trout fingerlings I recently added have been sucked into my SLO, yet plenty of them could have fitted in the 10mm holes initially. None of them have been sucked into the 40mm inlet of the circulation pump either.

Thanks Gunagulla. I have moved the fingerlings to a big bucket with a small bubbler in there. Three have already died I think but I've left them in to minimize stress to the remaining fingerlings.

I'm confused now by your advice lol. Do I change the SLO or not worry???

I think I'll make the new SLO but I'll keep the current ones and if the baby-safe one doesn't cope with fish poo as the babies grow then I'll be able to swap them out.

It's a bit fiddly but not the worst job in the World...

I deliberately made my slo with small holes because of this with the view to change it as the fish get bigger and so does their poo :-)

PVC pipe and fittings is cheap, well I think so anyway.

Sometimes, one size doesn't fit all!