Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm hunting for a euro nest at the moment. They are difficult to find but when I do, I use a funnell, a small stone to almost block the funnell and half a litre of petrol. You should here the roar that the funnell generates after a few minutes!!
No more wasps.........

Any tips on hunting them down? I've got a hell of a lot in my backyard, but I don't know where they're coming from.

apparently when they have food, they go in a dead straight line back to the nest. From my council website:

Mmmmmmm. Sunday lunch.
I haven't eaten one yet but they should taste ok after being in clean water for 5 weeks.
Gotta be very careful when handling live golden perch 'cause they can cut you to pieces. Karma I guess.

How many fish have you got in there??

31 left. Some bigger, some smaller.
Plus 3 in the swimming pool but I've become rather attatched to those ones.
Interestingly the ones in the pool are a very dark grey where the ones in the biofilter are much lighter. They seem to take the colour of thier environment.
Gotta go and get the fish out of the oven..... taste report to come.
I opted to cook it with no other flavours to get an idea of what , if anything is needed.

BuuuurrrrrP!! Very good to eat! quite a soft, white meat.
I cooked the fish in foil with margerine.
A little sea salt completed the recipe.
I don't believe there is a need for any strong flavours to be added.
I would put the golden perch on a tastewise level with a wild summer trout imo.

Awesome pool! And Callop, as we call them here, are one of my favourite eating fish. My tip is to make sure you refrigerate them overnight. It seems to set the flesh or something. They just seem a bit mushy if cooked straight out of the water IMO. Actually, I rekon most fish are better refrigerated first - only exception is mullet, which are best cooked fresh...

Any other opinions?

Hello folks, thought I'd bring this thread back from the past and give an update about my pool.
I think this is summer number eleven coming up and it just keeps doing its thing, and I just keep doing my maintenance thing. The original Hurlcon LX300 is still running well, how about that! That's 24/7 running too.

The pool is still what it started as, totally unsanitised. The pool has never had anything added to the water, and there are no electronic devices, just the Hurlcon pump.
The water has been very stable over all the years, always very clear and clearest in Summer.
I gave up serious water chemistry testing fairly early on, because things just didn't change. I did have a thorough water test conducted by Albury City Council at my request in January 2013. The biological results were very good with e.Coli measured at 3 mpn/100ml. The overall quality of the water was high enough for the council to formally approve the pool for swimming.

Roy the koi has lived in the pool all the time, and there are a couple of long term resident golden perch.

I made some significant steps in my fine filtration using geofabric as a serviceable gravity flow filter media. My filter has about 14 square metres of filter area. It keeps the water filtered for the upflow biofilter but just as importantly gives me somewhere to send water when I vacuum the pool and biofilter, without sending any water to waste.

The flora associated with the system has been interesting to observe and maintain. Where algae was one of the main things I initially wanted to avoid, I've come to rely on it for its nutrient uptake and it's ability to trap fine detritus.
The algae present in the system is string algae, not green water single cell. That means very clear water when the algae is left undisturbed. The algea is most active in spring when it responds to rising water temps and accumulated nutrient from the Autumn and winter. I've just vacuumed mid October and removed the algae from the system. The algae growth slows down from now and is at its least through summer and Autumn.
Growth of other plants in the system including bottle brush and ti tree have proven to be slow but healthy. There is no soil as such in the system, just low nitrates and accumulated detritus near the plants. I have found taro to grow very well in the biofilter.



https://jeff-knox.smugmug.com/Natural-pools/i-htf7psb/A

https://jeff-knox.smugmug.com/Natural-pools/i-mNrg8R8/A

Thanks for bringing this back. Outstanding system. Beautiful surroundings and it's still running! You must be thrilled. Congratulations.

Thanks boss!

Here's a pic of my fine filter. It's very basic in concept and consists of eight panels that connect to a manifold that takes water to the bottom of the gravel bed. I sew bags made from geofabric that cover hollow plastic panels. This allows water to pass through the fabric and into the hollow core. The filter has big capacity with service interval between 6 and 16 weeks, depending on the time of year. I generally replace the bags once each year but I've had them last up to 18 months.
The geofabric is very durable and withstands many cleans with a pressure washer. Geofabric can filter to a very small size and as detritus accumulates on the fabric, it actually filters even finer.
This filter is an essential part of my pool and took a few years to get to its latest configuration. I've used geofabric from the start, but found that algae is an excellent flow stopper, so large square metreage accomplished by multiple panels was the solution.

The water quality in the pool is the thing that impresses me the most, because it is achieved relatively simply. The water is not just like rain water or just like a mountain stream, it is unique water in that it's totally alive, clearer and cleaner than said mountain stream, and is long term stable due to being an enclosed circulating system.

pH has always measured between 7.2 and 7.6, hardness and alkalinity in the low 20 ppm. It's super soft!
E.C. measures between 0 and .1 mS. TDS 58.

https://jeff-knox.smugmug.com/Natural-pools/i-TkMDJCn/A

https://jeff-knox.smugmug.com/Natural-pools/i-v7kQ2Tv/A

Awesome fines filter setup. Can I assume the filter is protected from the sun and the algae is coming from the pool? What types of pond plants if any, do you have in there?

Yes, I have a shade cover over the filter box. Took me a little while to realise how much algae actually grew on the filter panels due to it being an excellent grow media in sunlight, as opposed to just what was caught from the circulating water. Covering the filter increased the service interval considerably from two weeks to about six weeks. The service interval varies with the time of year and vacuuming. I can get up to four months between filter cleans during the late summer/autumn period. If I vacuum I mostly clean the filter when I'm finished, and sometimes I need to clean the filter during the vac process if I do the whole system. The panels can retain a significant amount of detritus between services. The filter always stays fresh/earthy smelling too, because it's alive.

I have some Australian native plants in the biofilter such as callistemon, leptospermum, casuarina, riparian grasses.
Some plants like water lily do not strive due to lack of nutrient.
I don't have free floating plants or deep water plants growing in the gravel, they don't strive either.
Accumulated detritus around the plants on the shallow water shelves seems to be the main sustenance for these plants. Some plants such as the swamp oak send a raft of fine roots across the water surface. The algae as mentioned is the best plant for nutrient uptake. Vacuuming gets rid of the algae, and the nutrients it's taken up.
My gravel biofilter is about 32 square metres at a depth of 300mm, or about 10 cubic metres. Way more than is needed but as it was my first pool I wasn't taking chances. Gravel is nominally sized at 7mm and consists predominantly of quartz (70%) plus other rock types. I sourced it locally which was very fortunate! The gravel buffers the water to a favorable (low) levels of hardness, alkalinity and pH.

I've become somewhat of a water sniffer over the years, comparing my pool water to streams that flow from the Great Dividing Range, near where I live. The smell of the water is all but identical. These mountain streams that I've trout fished for many years played a big role in my understanding of biologically regenerated water.
It's pretty much a ritual of mine each time I swim in my pool to wash my face and almost sniff water up my nose to really smell it. It's very fresh. I rely on long overflow edges in the pool to provide as much atmospheric contact between air and water, no other aeration is used.

Oh wow the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callistemon is a a gorgeous flowering plant.
They are all beautiful trees. Very nice setup thanks for sharing.
I love the learning aspect your pool provides. Absolutely stunning creation you have there.

Thanks boss, there's always something different to see when I go and look at the pool, whether it's flora or fauna.
Forums like this have been a huge help to me over the years in helping me understand what I need to provide, to make a good home for the biology to thrive.