Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Do you plant from seed or seedlings ???

Threw a handfull of seed into one of the new gb's today. Will have to wait a few days to see if that was a good idea or not. Will use peat or perlite to start in net pots if it dosen't work. Just need some Ell Gro channels to put them in.

They are so reasonable, BUT the freight.....wonder if ROZ delivers to the north west

I would remommend channels that have a rempvable top for anything other than lettuce. The basil roots need trimming regularly to stop blockage, this doesn't seem to hurt the plant, but it is a pain in the arse extracting chunks of roots out of the 50mm holes... also the channels are hard to clean.. We won't be using them again once we have used existing stocks. Great for lettuces though. Our next experiment is with dwc for basil instead of the nft, leave the nft just for lettuce and quick plant to harvest stuff.

DWC ??? monya if you have time please explain

deep water dulture Jessy, like the UVI system, you run the filterred water thru growbeds full of eater instead of gravel with the roots dangling thru holes in a sheet of foam or something similar, the roots dangle in the water, whichg needs to be heavily aerated, and extract the nutrients that way.. Still need filtrstion, whether it be by growbeds or other means.

AIROPINICS ???

No i think its when you have a raft setup and the roots hang down into the water with air being pumped under them to stop rot. I'm planning a raft for my tank as i have the air stones working in there anyway and i need a 50% cover to keep the fish happy. Do a google search in relation to hydroponics and you will see what he means or at least what i mean .

Well I did it again went to top the tank up a few hundred liters and got side tracked, and left the hose in the tank ALL NIGHT going flat out, then it rained for two hours ontop of that

haven't killed the fish yet again though

I have this golden rule number one, which I never abided by last night, and that is to not go near the system after a few , cause I always do something stupid

Damn lucky the town water here is really clean, and nothing much is added to it, just have the system pumping flat out to get the DO levels up again.

get one of those mechanical timers on your tap, then when you need water turn it for an hour... I forget whether rain, hail, shine, alert, tired or alcohol The tap timer's great though, and cheap.

Roll your eyes as you will, but this is the 5th admission of neglecting topup hoses I have heard of. Therefore there are a great number of ppl on this forum not game to admit it also.

Guilty as charged...

on more than just one ocassion

Got myself one of those timers as well...

Guilty! Made the same mistake twice and now I have a timer.

Or use a couple of blue drums. Fill these up and thow an air stone in the top. When you need to top up the system just turn on the tap and forget about it. If you use a float valve to keep the drums filled you just turn off the tap before you let the water out.