Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Water is rain water collected from the shed roof- zincalume but about 5 years old so should be OK.
Tested a couple of hours ago and pH is 7.8 in the fish tank. Seems rather alkaline so I will check the pH of the water in the rainwater tank- perhaps the contact with the gravel has raised the pH. Not that that would be a bad thing as I expect to have to add shellgrit once the system is running full bore

Hi Jim. I too have my fishtank in a shed. Put 400 silvers in a 5000lt gal tank last week, used some scoria from previous system in gbs. High pH will help your nitrifying bacteria colonise quicker. My littlies are feeding in cloudy water (gives them somewhere to hide) at 11-12C. They will grow an inch a month.

You could throw some in now I reckon and plant away, just easy on the feed for a few weeks. Jades and sleepys need too much heat, trout need high flow pristine water. Silvers are a great tasting fish. You will need room for a salt bathtub as your hospital tank and also to purge them prior to eating. My supplier swears by keeping fingerlings at 4-5ppt salt to aid their immune system during early growth.
Keep us posted.

That's interesting TT. At what size does he take them out of the 4-5ppt salt?

60mm when he sells them. Ponded them over winter, into tanks late winter at 5ppt. Solid little buggers feeding nicely at 12C.

Hmmmm....must try that when carrying stock over winter next time, bit high for continuous dose for vegies unfortunately...intended setting up an isolation tank and running that around 4ppt for the 1st month to help settle new fingerlings in

Maybe grow some sea lettuce

Update on current state of play
I have been monitoring the ammonia , nitrates and nitrites now for a month and clearly didn't spot the peaks in NH3 and NO2 because the nitrates are now almost off the scale on my test kit charts. As you can see from the pics I have made a cover for the fish tank, to keep beasties out, and have added another filter in the somewhat vain attempt to reduce the muddiness of the water. I have also built some frames for support for the peas, which are going well , and the tomatoes, which have not yet germinated. The peas , lettuce , pakchoy(?) went in about 10 days ago whilst the tomatoes were only planted a couple of days ago. Not possible to keep better half from wanting to plant seeds- my main concern is that we will not have enough nitrogen to support the plants already growing.
The lettuce in particular are very leggy so they are probably not getting enough light.
With a bit of luck tomorrow will be calm and I will be able to replace the steel roof over most of the GBs with laserlight sheeting.
And no there are no fish in the fish tank yet- planning on arranging some for next week. Plan is for 100 silver perch and 100 tandanus catfish if I can get them.

Forgot to add that the pH is fairly stable at 7.9-8.0 and the water temperature is now between 14 and 18 degrees C.
The ammonia reading is basically nil to 0.1 and the Nitrite is the same ie a trace only. Nitrate as above is probably over 100ppm

Don't think you're going to have a problem there Jim .....

Kind of wondering just how your nitrates got that high.... what have you been putting into the tank ... quantity wise?

Rupe-had some flathead tails that were found in the freezer and some squid in the same packet- probably about 200-300 grams of each. Put into a stocking and suspended in the tank. Will probably be really revolting when I pull them out of the water.
Plus a serve most days of "liquid gold" - about a bladder full a day.
Interestingly I have admitted to peeing in the tank to all the friends who have come to see the setup and haven't had one negative comment so far!!
Big problem to date has been that friends want me to supply them with fish ASAP!

I'd be pulling the old fish scrapes out a while before adding any fish...

And you could probably ease right of the humannomia as well...

Reckon you could grow a shed full of tomatoes with those nitrate readings

I agree Rupe, the scraps will come out today or tomorrow and then the system will be allowed to settle for a few days before the fish go in.
I have just finished changing the steel roof for a polycarbonate one over most of the GB area. Needless to say it was calm when I started but the wind picked up as each steel sheet came off- bloody sod's law. But that is now done!.
Hell of a lot of work to this point- am I ever looking forward to the first crop of munchies.
Don't want to do the financial sums- I reckon it will probably be several years of good crops before the initial costs are paid back.
Just spoke to a bloke in Wagga- going to see him on Thursday to collect 100 catfish- he will not have silver perch until about Xmas time so I will order 100 for then. He reckons there will be no problem adding the silvers to a tank already containing the Tandanus.

Jim, give very careful consideration as to how you're going to transport the fish all the way from Wagga back home.... January will be hot...

Have a read through the latest threads by Steve and VB regarding loses due to heat, lack of DO, volume of water etc...

Might pay to set up a well oxygenated tank and bio-filter .... maybe an aquarium filter and a couple of airstones for transport....

Might be worth starting a new thread where everyone could discuss ways and means of transport....

Yhey might be little, but you'll be getting a 100 of them and transporting them some distance and over a period of several hours.....

Might be worth considering doing it during the evening into night....

In an an air-conditioned car, with the A/Cond set to Freeze!

When, I received my fish (200 silver perch - for farm dam)from Aquablue seafoods, they placed frozen snap lock bags in the styrofoam container to keep the water bag cooled. They had to come about 350Km.