Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well I'm attempting to ahve a go LOL. Not sure how this'll work I still live at home with my parents so everythings gotta go by them first.

After a lot of work I finally managed to get a stock trough off of them. Hopefully they'll me keep it this time. I got one off of them a while ago, fixed it up and they decided they wanted it back now I fixed the leak.

Anyway this is another leaking trough. The drain on it is totally stuffed, all the parts are broken and cracked. After calling all the farm supply stores in the area looking for a replacement part I've given up. Apparently these troughs haven't been made for the last 15 years. So instead I removed all the drain parts just leaving a hole, spent almost an hour scrubbing the area with mineral turpentine to get a clean surface, then using aquarium safe silicone, glued a piece of plastic over the top. Not sure how well it'll hold up but hopefully it'll be okay. The plastic I used over the top is one of those silly plastic decal type plaques saying something or other about how great it is to get old. It was a gag gift from someone on my Dads 50th. I shoved a couple of very heavy rocks on top to hopefully get a good water tight seal. So now I have to sit and wait for 3 days for the silicone to cure enough to test it, then another 4 for it to fully cure so I can fill it up properly. I still need to scrub the whole thing down as well, it's been sitting in the paddocks for the last 15 years.

Since I'm pretty much broke at the mo, I'm not going for anything fancy. I'm just going to try some plants planted in styrofoam on the surface with an airpump with a modified airlift tube to provide surface agitation.

For fish, some of my goldfish will be moving over, I'm a vegan so theres no point in putting edible fish in, though if this works I do have a variety of aussie natives I really want to keep. For plants I was thinking maybe tomato plants. Mum wants to grow strawberries but I think it's too cold now. If the tomatoes grow I think I'm going to end up needing to add more fish. I only have 2-3 goldfish that are fast enough to be safe from birds. The rest are the fancy variety's that just happily float around.

Any comments or ideas? Oh forgot to add that the tub is about 480l so its a good size for all its old. If this works when I have more money I might have a go at setting up grow beds but yeah don't have the money for the pumps and gravel etc.

Good to see you're on the way Cuti.....

Can you post pics of the tub and the trough.

Lol I will when the camera battery charges, it ran out last night LOL and I forgot to charge it.

Sound like an idea whos time had come there cuti. bits and bobs will do the trick, surely you'd have all you need around the place just got to collect them.
hehehe
have fun and you will learn the best way to do things small and then BIGGER!!

where are we going to put the bigger one?

LOL easy theres a 75 000l pool my parents just finished draining, by the time they start looking at the 3000 dollar pumps required to convert it to a Koi pond I'm sure they just might think again LOL.

Not too far away I would say...
Funny thing is there are heaps of backyards that do nothing...
sure the inhabitance would love AP if they only knew,... go knock on doors.
Nah don't unless you want to

The actual Tub, its 115 cm in diameter, 40 cm high, and seriously needs a good scrub down


And where its going to go, its the only place with access to electricity

Ohuh!! looks like fun....hehehe
lots of gravel washing there!!

LOl its gonna have water in it not a growbed. I dont have the money for the pumps, grow beds, gravel etc so am just gonna try plants planted in the floating Styrofoam stuff.

Ah... sorry Cuti.... when you said trough, I thought you meant like a long food trough, and that you had a "tub" as well.....

Can you get your hands on an old food trough for a growbed, or like most people do use either blue barrels (if you can get them) cut in half OR... old bath tubs.... surely these's a few floating around up your way??

LOl nup, I've tried that. Bath tubs are coveted things round here as they make such perfect troughs for livestock, I only got this big trough because it leaks. The only barrels I can get are the old metal ones that used to be used for pesticides, or something equally poisonous. Nah I'm happy floating plants on top.

The tub/trough is an old stock trough lol sorry its basically the same thing.

Cuti, If it's too cold for strawberries where you are ATM, then it will be too cold for tommies.. Have you got any herbs growing around the house you can divide and grab some bits from? Otherwise something a little better suited to the cold wheather would be the go.... Alos, it's probably good if you can have the bubbler under the floating raft, added air bubbles for the plant roots..

We have tomatoes growing wild all over the place, so it cant be that cold, I dunno I just figured strawberries were sensitive, I've never managed to grow em LOL. I've got plenty of plants to use, Mum has massive veggie gardens as she refuses point blank to buy vegetables from woolies, apparently they taste like water because they're hydroponically grown.

Cuti, there are many strawberry varieties around these days....

Temperature isn't actually as important as you may think... it's more a matter of amount of daylight hours....

Day nuetral varieties and cool climate species are readilly avaiable...

ie Strawberry optimum range is 12-24, low 5, high 30....

Now is actually the best time to plant new runners for next seasons fruit.

You can even get frost tolerant varieties and there's even a native strawberry that grows in the Canadian and Alaskan tundra!

Talk to your local nursery

Edited :

I've only recently brought some Alpine Strawberry seeds to try....

Haven't tried them before so can't tell you how they go.... pic below