Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

No from the fish tanks so they cant empty

Ahhh, sorry

No, leaving that one until we have time... but its definitely going to be done before more fish go in! We will be just putting in a float switch... (considering putting in two, one to stop draining, and one to stop overflowing... but draining is our main priority.)

We will also be taking out 3 of the 2 tiers in those two corners of the GH, (6 in total) to put the two 2400L tanks. So we will have 10x2 tiers left which we will also be converting to gravel GBs too. Hoping at this stage that 31 growbeds will be enough for the FTs... havent worked out the densities we can stock on that yet tho!

So this is our work list so far for the end of packing season:

Fit float switch to one of the FTs
Remove 6 of the 2 tier beds
Work out what to do with 6 x 2 tier beds
Install the 2 new tanks with SLOs
Fit lids to FTs
Modify drainage points into yabby tanks to divert water to the back to create more of a swirl effect
Remove gravel from 2 of the big GBs that have leaks and fix'em
Buy a tonne or two of gravel to convert the rest of the two tiers beds over
Remove plastic from roof and replace with shadecloth
BUY FISH!
Cross fingers.

And then we will also be working on the backyard watering system for the new fruit trees, installing an automatic watering system for the chookyards, modifying and roofing the duck yard, fencing another section of the yard area for an extended chook run(lost a chook to a fox the other day while they were freeranging), me building a cob oven (crossing fingers on that one), hubby home brewing with a bro-in-law... plus getting all the blockwork done. And that will all be during valencia season!

If we actually get all that done, have to admit that I will be very impressed! I think we may have to prioritise as we go along somehow!

No rest for the wicked... and we are VERY wicked!!

Photos, or it didn't happen !

... trouble is, I never have a camera handy when it happens...

Amazing system!

Bugger !!

Ill try my hardest to run for the camera as soon as I feel that we might be going to be wicked just so I can capture it for you Chilli...
its pretty impressive when it happens Ive been told...
Thanks cmcguire99! Hopefully in a couple of months it will be more so...
looking a bit bare at the moment!

Checked on the yabbies the other day, and we still have all the babies going which is great! Also havent lost any of the others unbelievably... although I suppose they have been pretty dormant in the cold weather they are getting a bit more frisky now and coming out to eat which is good to see. Also our 4 goldfish which are in with the yabbies are still looking fat and happy. Solitary GP still doing well.

Hey netab, just wondering if you ended up glueing those off-cuts over the IBC outlets (page7)? Did it work out ok? What adhesive did you use?

Thanks !!

Hi antisense
Sure did, and worked a treat - havent had one fail yet (touch wood)
We used Sikaflex as it seems to have a stronger bond on the plastic than silicone... but we did use silicone in the system too. Unfortunately we have 2 gravel beds that have a leak around the standpipe and Im pretty sure they were silicone glued ones which is going to be a bit of a bugger to fix! Still, 2 out of 21 isnt too bad considering we had no idea what we were doing at the time!

No matter what you use, if you have time rub the area you are going to glue with some rough sandpaper if you can. I think you will have a good result that way. we didnt by the way, and havent had too many probs... and the good thing about sikaflex is that it can be applied underwater if you HAVE to, to fix a small leak etc.

Thought I would put up a pic to give you an idea of what is keeping us so busy at the moment.

This is our front export line... Andrew spotted me just as I was taking it

Now on to the good stuff!
We had a MOST productive weekend as we actually had Sunday off ... been working 6 day weeks for quite a while now, and it was a beautiful weekend to be outside!

So, we have now cleaned out all but 6 tanks of yabbies and sorted them as we went... meaning Andrew did all the hard slog scrubbing and I ended up having fun sexing and sizing and re-housing yabbies. Working on a ratio of 1 male to 10-15 females based on size this time around. We havent bothered with sexing them before - in the past we just threw them in based on size, so will be interesting to see what happens.

Interestingly we had a few tanks with exactly the same number coming out that went in (12 in an IBC... mtr/sq?) and Andrew kept commenting on the fact that when he was grabbing out hides there were up to 5 or 6 yabbies all in the one hide crammed together!

So all the excess males that are big enough to eat are in the 2000L fish tank ATM, being nicely purged to be cooked up in the next few days... I think we will end up with about 80 yabbies by the end. Not much of a feed but we are heading up the Darling River next weekend to go yabbying, so will be definitely eating our fill then!

We also have 18 berried females (Remembering we still have 6 tanks to go, so may have a couple more by the end!), so have separated those into two tanks for now!

Andrew had popped into town yesterday morning to buy a 12v bilge pump which has worked wonderfully to empty out the yabby tanks. After draining all of them into the GBs as well as going so far as to dump the sludge in the bottom into them as well, I did a water test:

pH = 8
Amm=.5
Ni=0
Na=5 ... actually it could be 10, was really hard to work out as my card has faded a bit... was dark orange, but definitely not red. But all in all we were surprised that the system hadnt had a massive spike considering the volume of mucky water that ended up in the system! But by the end of the day the water was running clear so it looks like everything is working well... will do another test tomorrow to see whether it changes.

The following pic is of the yabbies pulled from one of the tanks where there were 12 in - 12 out... as you can see, there was a fair size difference, but that doesnt seem to bother them - one thing we noticed while going through all the tanks, in the hides with multiple yabbies in them was that there could be massive size difference between occupants - ie: 1 huge one, 2 about 1/3 the size, and a few medium ones.

Now some update pics...

More pics...

Well... you've been a busy girl...

Hi Rupe
Yup, must be the lovely warm days that are getting us enthusiastic but just wait till the next lot of pics after these, because I have more to show yet...