Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well all goldfish in sump now dead.
System test:
.25 amm
0 rite
40 rate - will test in a few days when the dead fish effect has reduced.
ph 6.8 - down from 7.2 a few weeks ago.

99 silvers still happy and feeding. Try to feed morning and night which can be hard as this morning water was back down to 17 deg so they were off again.

Definately raising mossies - there are dozens or hundreds of mossie larva casings above the sump water line. Took the kids for a fishn trip to local Katanook park which has some Gambusia (moskito fish). Got about 20 and will leave in 4 ppt salt for a few days and put them in the sump. Anyone think this is a bad idea? Saw some duck weed down there also which is good to know i want to get some happeneing soon.

Going through a fair bit of lettuce at the moment so getting my timing pretty good with only about 1 week without lettuce redy to pick. Have my first egplant - i'll try to get a pic. Happy with that. Celery looking good. Parsley started well but seems to have stalled. Adding seasol and iron regularly so not sure whats holding it back.

PH has reallly dropped since i upped the feed, may need to buffer soon with some shell grit.

All in all loving the AP.

Have my first eggplant growing well with a few slug bite marks. I had maybe half a dozen small set ones at the same time but the rest have died. I have manually attemted pollination like you would a tomato hoping for the next lot of flowers to set properly and get more than one Eggplant. See how we go.

HSM today.
Woke up and the house was VERY QUIET. No lights working - no fridges, hmmmmmm, worked out it was the pump shorting out th ewhole fuse box. Down to the big B at 7.30am and got a replacement. Lost no fish - pump was off for up to 6 hours but i recon more like 4ish. Slow growth over summer may have been a blessing....
Got one of the small blue submersibles for $50 - 250watts 8k per hour - seems like a good deal....
Got some more seedlings today. Broccoli and Leek. See how we go...

Hi,

I'm in East Bentleigh.. interesting to know there are people doing AP so close.

How are your SP going?, I was considering getting some myself when my system is cycled

do you get the barrels from somewhere near by or are they a Bunnings job?

also you mention that you had some problem with all the rain and you installed some overflow measures, I'm having the same issue and I'm reluctant to install a hard roof if you could elaborate that would be great!

here's my system Fabian's System

It's been "up" for about a month but like everything its a work in progress

Fabian

Hi Fabian, the SP's are going well. I think i have underfed them actually, they are pretty small after a cool summer. They seem pretty happy so hoping they make it throu winter no problem they are between 8 and 12cms. I had one that came up with a skin fungus looking bad but salted to 3ppt and no more sickies since. At this stage of the year i would recomend trout not sps. I got my barrels from a guy in moorabin. I'll pm you his number if you are interested - he had heaps for $15 each.

I have got an overflow from my ibc sump tank that directs water down the drain. I havent really had the heavy downpours since the summer when i was getting overflowing. I need to adapt with a screen so fish cant escape when i stick some trout in my sump! Its really just a hole in the side so that the tank cant fill to the brim.

yeah if you could pm me the number that'd be great.. I have had trouble finding IBCs closer than Sunshine or Williamstown, I think you said you got your's off your mate.. but if you know of anywhere closer and could help me out with a company name or something I would be much obliged.

Fabian

Its been a while since my last post. Summer ended with a wimper and the system has been pretty low key. Have had less time than I wanted so after 3 months I finally got around to making a little change with the IBC I had sitting in the garage. Had to make some room. Will have to change my subject and remove the barrels! Dont worry, I have something in mind to reuse them mfor spring

Running some trout in my sump tank while the Silvers are dormant, so really acting as two connected tanks. They are still less than 10cm so hoping to get 5-6months of trout out of the sump. The IBC above the trout runs straight into the trout tank for extra airation which seems to work. Also means i no longer have issues with the SLO overflowing so all seems to work ok.

Main changes:
Remove barrels and overlay IBC growbeds. Beds around 40cm so 350ltr or so. Much better use of space, dont sag and look better. I mad a little more space to access the tanks. Got a hold of proper tanks protection to stop kids falling in - have a cover also but its not in the pics. Only paid for the bulk head and plumbing for the whole thing so really only cost me time! Now need more gravel to fill bed number two - the gravel out of the barrels was a bit muckie so the water looks brown.


Went out to Buxton today to get some trout. Nice place and good folks there. Didnt take any pictures of the fish as a few were gasping when we got home so I chucked them straight in. Two swam at the top for a minute and then were ok. I'll try to get some pics soon. Researching some air options.

Funny thing is there were two 6cm Silvers who swam up the SLO - must have been some space big enough in the guard i made, and also two gold fish - I couldnt catch them so running an experiment to see how long they last in a tank with the trout...

Found some Kale seedlings, they seem happy. Also have some mpack choy and other bits and pieces. Looking forward to having the fish poo power after a few slow months!


happy to finally make a decent upgrade!

Ordered a Halea AC-308 from ebay. 10 days to get here and a pretty good deal - it included airstones and setup tubing so easy. Its rated to 2.5meters and 55ltrs per hour(30w). Across 2 tanks thats a good supply to each. Stones are at 1meter and produce a nice bubbling fizz. I'm pretty happy with the result. It does produce an audible humm i can hear from the back door 10 meters away. It is nowhere near as loud as the davey pump that runs the rainbank system attached to the rain water tank so Im not worried. Actually it makes it really easy to know things are running by sticking your head out the door - not even seeing the aqp system.

The palet base under the IBC GB has a perfect sized space underneath the GBs where the pump can sit dry and near the tanks. The tank level is just about the level of the plank the pump sits on so I put in the supplied one way valves. Does anyone know if these one way valves limit the performance of the pump? From there the air lines fit nicely through the gap unde rthe GB to enter the tank. The water is really swirling now, with the pump running every 1hr15 for 15 turning over the total volume.

Its been pretty cold. the tank temp seems to be fluctuating between 6 degrees first thing in the morning to 9-10 deg depending on the day temp.

I have been trialling some green leafy veg in foam rafts on the RH GB which is only half full of gravel. Seems to be ok. Love the kale which is growing well in the other bed. I also have a broccolli across the back in the bed which isnt really getting any winter sun but seems to be growing well anyway.

The trout are pretty cautious feeders. Only a few come up for feed until i put the cover on and then i can hear them splashing for the feed. This happened last year two when I put in advanced fingerlings cv younger fingerlings who feed more aggressively.

sweet air pump

Getting some growth on my UBF (ugly but functinal) floating rafts. The foam I got from the Queen Vic market where they throw these boxes out in the dozens.

Coz lettuce and spuinach seems to go ok, parsley and minoinette lettuce maybe its too cold?

Roots look interesting....

The GB has about half gravel, leaving some space for my 2 tail nipped refugee gold fish....

Planted some broccoli also to take up some of the nutes - i got my timing wrong and planted some bok choy etc too late so hasnt grown much coz of the COLD. Kale growing slowly....


Tanks temps bw 8-10 deg
low ammo reading(.5?) at the mo but nitirites seem to be ok so will slow down on food for a bit...system running well though, pump seems to aid the swilrling in the tank and keeps the solids pumping to the gbs ok......

I was reading Merricks thread the other day re:smokers/keg viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9992&hilit=smoker&start=15

Have wanted to do that for a while. Happened across this at the dump for $0 so thought - why not give it a crack. Works a treat. Had one little trout form last season in the freezer, and was beaut.

Basically cut the thing into 3. Put in some brackets which hold the bits in place nicely. Used some wire to make a simple rack between the brackets. Made a heat bead holder out of a tomato tin- add the sticks to the tin once the heatbead is going. Light it up and worked a treat.

Smoked for about 3 hours on 1 heat bead - tasted awesome, very tender. Thats olive paste on the bikkie btw



heres the tools i used:
tip: fill the thing with water before you start cooking to make sure theres no gas inside.

Pretty cool Bonsaibelly, I was wondering if it would be dangerous angle grinding a gas bottle. Did you mean fill with water before cutting or cooking?

Haha yes thats fill before CUTTING to get rid of the gas.

Nice BB.... I've seen some very interesting bbq's and smokers made from big gas bottles, good to see a small one will work as well...