Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Plot of water temp (yellow line) for the past 10 days of generally cooler weather.



I have been collecting a few strawberries and beans and some chard and chives and other herbs from this system lately, along with the occasional walking onion, and there will be a lot of tomatoes to start picking soon.

Yellow plot of water temps, this system still only has one Murray Cod in it, which doesnt seem to eat much, although perhaps it eventually eats the grasshoppers and worms I throw in, when I've given up waiting to see if it is going to eat them. I've just bought some more ox heart, so I'm hoping it will show some interest in that.
Lots of new plantings in the GBs, and attempts to grow corn from seed in small pots part buried in the media have mostly been feeding mice instead.

That is one very determined cod, determined not to eat, determined not to grow and determined not to die either , or has it grown a little bit ?

I'm sure its a few mm longer than when you last dropped in, but only a very few!

I've got large populations of these critters in both systems, and sometimes they get into the root ball of a plant and turn it to mush, killing the plant. These particular ones, and there were probably 1000 or more of them here, are in the poly insulation under the GB inlet. They are generally 2-3mm long, and look quite similar to termites.



Once I find out what they are, I'll see if I can reduce their numbers somewhat!

Pretty sure they are Springtails Gordon. Usually they aren't a problem even when you've got a ton of them.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/insects/find/springtails/
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74136.html

Thanks Scotty, they certainly appear to be identical with Folsomia candida.

I guess the question is- were they in vast numbers in the roots of dying plants because they were already sick, or did they cause the problem?

"Moisture control is the most effective strategy"... I cant see that being a solution in my GBs!

"Millions in a hectare", I suspect there are millions in my small AP system!

Gunagulla i had exactly the same critter and it was Scotty who gave the answer,so i just forgot about them after blaming them for nearly everything that had gone wrong and nothing changed they just seemed to go about there daily business without harming anything.I reduced there numbers slightly by raising the water level in my constant flow beds,i just left them less room.

Yellow water temp and red air temp plots for the past week- I think this is the hottest the water has been in this system, although not on the hottest day, due not having all the GBs covered with insulation ATM. It shouldn't be a problem for the Murray Cod, who may be taking an extended vacation to a neighbours large and deep farm dam in the not too distant future!



Things are growing well, and despite the indications of something not quite right for the capsicums, there are quite a few fruit getting to reasonable size.

Now there is minimal fish poo generation, the biofilm has mostly disappeared from the FT, and the water, although normally very clear, is exceptionally so now. I added about 100g of B&B to the GBs a few days ago, and about 200g of Seasol a few days before that.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-22/a ... la/7072870

and I'm told some of the audio recordings will be on ABC Radio Country Hour today and Monday

- Looks awesome mate. ll with no grid power...very impressive. I've always said I would love to raise trout...maybe there's hope.lol

Thanks Chris, I reckon you might be able to make a long enough season to raise trout with some insulation and a chiller, their fast growth rate helps a lot.

Not much new happening, getting a steady supply of beans, capsicums and tomatoes, and a few strawberries and eggplant, plus lots of herbs, but a lot of the seeds we've been trying to start have been eaten by mice, it seems there is a bit of a plague of them ATM. The banana is huge, but still no sign of any fruit developing.

The water got fairly warm again in mid January (yellow line), as shown here in the plot for the last half of the month.

Yellow plot of water temperature in this system for the first week of February



*Note water temp plots should be shifted 1 hour to the left as they are DST and air temp is EST.

Warmer weather means warmer water (yellow plot)




A wallaby or kangaroo ended up in the ST a few days ago, but managed to extract itself without doing any damage, other than putting the covering netting into the water, along with all the leaves, sticks and bark that were on top of it.
The plants continue to grow well, and it will soon be time to think about planting some broccoli and cauliflower.