Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Air stones added to fish tanks and the fish have DOUBLED their food intake. DOUBLED!

Discovered that if you steam rocket it looses its bitterness and tastes like spinach. BONUS. Then discovered it gave me horrendous stomach cramps. Well something did and haven't been game to try it again since.

All leafy greens doing well except for broccoli which is disappointing.

Realised today that I have not added z drop of water to the system since I did a clean to remove scoria fines back in July. With the dryness we have at the moment that's incredible.

BEST NEWS EVER... I managed to get funding to install a system at my kids primary school.so excited I can barely sleep.

Broccoli like bit of solids maybe? Mine loves it near a hot wall.

Make some rocket pesto?

Well done on the funding

Huge increase there! how many grams of pellets per fish are they eating each day now? I'm feeding around 2g each per day now.

Around 180g for approx 90 fish so looks like about as similar as you can get.

Deck half done and we had a party on it on Friday so I got to impress all my mates except for the ones with tall poppy complex who were looking doubtful as I told them how much I loved it and could only criticise. Some people! Meh...

Planning to plant some summer treats this week, basil on top of my list, followed by tomatoes, eggplant, will try beans and at least one chilli plant.

My 18 month old ripped off a leaf of ruby chard and I was a bit cranky but when I looked through the window, she was sitting on the ground with her back on the legs of the growbed, munching away on it and staring into space. Life is sweet. Just wish the thing had a coffee dispenser...

Had one death today. Measurements

pH 7.0
Ammonia 1
Nitrite 0.25
Nitrate 50

Fish didn't eat at all yesterday but were hungry today. I'm so upset about leaving the hose on, I only meant to top up a little and I didn't really even need to.

Glad the weather has turned a little, might make the ammonia less of a problem.

Stark contrast to my last post! Stoopid biological systems.

My fish can't die now, I've been plugging this system to death at the primary school.

That Ammonia is getting up, maybe due to suddenly increased feeding rates and bacteria not yet adjusted to being fed all the extra poo?
What range of water temperature are you seeing lately?
Are you feeding them 5mm pellets yet?

You're not the only one to have done that Carolyn...

I think losing the bacteria through the water cycling at the same time as dramatically increasing their feeding was exactly what happened. I was too scared to look this morning so input it off for a while. Til I walked past the FTs and heard the noise of a jet engine. It was a bit of a Pavlovian moment, the trout going berserk cause they thought it was feed time. I will ration the food for the next week til I see the ammonia dropping.

Vegies are going berserk!

And after 8 weeks of dry it has just started raining yeehaa a!!!

Check your ammonia tomorrow... it'll probably be gone...

Don't hold back the feed too much... you want those babies to grow...

So I'm just just sitting her eating my broccoli leaf chips and watching the native bees bussing around my rocket flowers. Just had to share. Included in the wildlife are frogs and spiders. Loving it so much.

Broccoli leaf chips? - are they like Kale chips? the same oxalic acid?
Stella Idea.

Probably same oxalic acid. But they're a little thicker and easier to roast. I love the green chip idea so much I'm trying them all out! Trying different combos of seasoning too. Cumin, salt n pepper, cayenne my fav so far is smidge of garlic powder.

Hey Carolyn, there is a rumour that my trout aren't eating enough, how much are yours eating now?

Hi Gordon its hard to say. I have a 500 ml scoop that i use. They eat in the morning and if I am home well before dark I give them another half scoop. That said sometimes I come back in the afternoon and there are still floating pellets. If they are hungry enough for their 2 nd lot they usually aren't interested in much the next day. Temperamental little buggers. They will never ever eat when I'm trying to show them off to visitors.

On average I would say 500g per day. I'm still on small pellets. Still have med and large to go. They have to end up eating the large or their flesh won't be pink and that won't be great for sales/gifts.

Today I planted watermelon, spaghetti squash, basil and rockmelon. I plan to trail the melons and squash over the side, have them grow on the ground but take advantage of the nutrient rich growbed where their roots will be.

I am thinking of buying my perch fingerlings soon. Prob aim for when I get back from my permaculture design course beginning nov.

My kids eat cucumber like its candy so I need to hang some rio over the fish tanks and get some of those started too.

Today I also planted bean seeds at the base of my prolific sugar snap and snow peas. I have tied the plants up so they can act as a trellis for the climbing beans.

[quote="Colours"]Sounds wonderful. How do you get stupid iPhone pics to upload? Keeps telling me its too large so I crop it and crop it again and it is still too large.

Here is an app that I have used to resize images on the iPhone.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id327776379?mt=8

Cropping doesn't necessarily "resize" the image. The maximum image size needs to be 800x600 pixels.

This app can do that for you then you should be able to post pictures.

PS Sorry if you no longer need this. I didn't have time to read through this enormously long thread!