Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well I posted the test results from the big system a while ago and now here are pictures of the growth in that system. It is currently running a 800l IBC connected to a murray Grow bed and a bath tub.

In the MGB there is lettuce of different kinds, full size tomatoes, snow peas, parsley, capsicum, and silver beet. The bath tub has more of the herbs with a lot of basil, some parsley, chillie's, and I think that is it.

The MGB has 20mm drainage gravel and the bathtub 10mm drainage gravel, both seem to be doing fine. The fish all seem happy but growth has been slow but they are getting bigger and hopefully we are almost through that slow growth and into the boom cycle.

Any way the plan is to get a murray tank and hook it up to the 800l Ibc have the silver perch in the murray tank and move my barra from there 500l ibc to the 800l ibc and hook up two more growbeds. Thus giving about 3300L of water in total and 1700l of growbed. From this I hope to be almost self sufficient for vegies. Any way enjoy.

here are somo more photos,

hey nick, nice work, good to hear your plans in the making. Are your growbeds in a shady spot?

yeah the MGB is under what I call a a native tobacco plant, but yeah it is a shady spot. The bath tub is in almost full sun so the basil is loving it. What you see in the photo is literally half of what was there yesterday morning. I made pesto yesterday and now have a cup and a half-three quarters. Tastes good.

The plans will hopefully come together in january and feb before I go back to uni and be broke again.

Niiiiice, how do you make the pesto? I would like to make pesto with some of the fresh stuff in the now re-shooting batch. We have chopped the top off all our basil plants and are drying it. As you have seen basil grows magnifico in AP hey?

the pesto was made by putting the basil leaves, garlic and the pine nuts in the blender and go nuts. Add in some good quality olive oil until it is combined well and then add the parmesan cheese.

The pine nuts should be roasted but i did not do mine and it still tasted good.

Very nice nick how many fish do you have

i have twenty goldfish, 25 silverperch and some random catfish. Did have crayfish in there but they seem to have moved on. Bit upset as they finally got to a decent size. Any way the biggest SP is about 15cm long so have some growing to go before dinner.

how are the barra in your pond going?

yeah they are all going along well, got jealous the other day when Aquamad showed his barra in the fish tank. Tried to catch mine to do the same, but do not have an appropriate size net so just managed to piss them off and they are now in hiding. I really wanted a photo so I could try and match him but no luck yet. Will try again later. They are eating well though not huge amounts.

Also they are not quite as impressive in numbers as yours. Have no real plans to fix that any time soon and am pretty upset at that.

so the 200 metre long gill net too small

I wish but may be some day

Cool glad to hear they are doing well. You haven't been tempted to eat them?

Mine still dont trst me after catching some of them... I used to tap on the tank 5 times to feed them and they would come right to me and hover about 3cm from the surface till I fed them (then it was just water EVERYWHERE!)
Now they wont feed till I have moved off

That growth in your system looks good there

Looks good Nick - has been significant growth since I was over a couple of weeks ago. Spurs me on to get my next beds set-up so I can plant a wider variety of stuff.

What is your nitrate level currently Nick?