Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You may take comfort in this thought. Even though, sometimes, it's an inconvience for us, it does show one thing- just how natural aquaponics is compared to other growing systems. Nature takes it as a natural water setting and the fact that even frogs, which are the most environmentally sensitive of all our animal species will breed there if given a chance, shows just how pristine a system it really is. In all the research I have ever read on hydroponics, even outdoor systems, I never read where wildlife invading to live has been an issue. Usually the opposite is true- that our growing systems detroy natural habitat.

Yes I agree even though ostracods and whatever else are annoying, I love having my "artificial ecosystem" as I like to call it. Its so much fun to have the fish and plant species as well as the others like bacteria and ostracods and being able to observe and learn from them. I will be so sad to leave behind or dismantle my system this fall when I go off to college but I guess its off to bigger and hopefully better things . But in the meantime I plan on enjoying my AP system to the fullest extent of imagination and maybe later in college I can build another system.

Don't know if these are useful to you http://hatch.cehd.umn.edu/research/fish ... .html#food

Ya good info. I looked into them and they look like they would work really good and would be the ideal fish for the dark growbed but they are expensive and seem to be hard to come by so if the local pet store doesn't have them cheap I'll probably just try the tetras. But thanks anyway

I got my tetras. Four black skirt tetras. I put them in a quarintine tank and will keep them there for a few weeks to slowly acclamate them to the nutrient rich AP water since they are ornamental aquaria fish. I'm also going to experiment and see if after they begin eating well (since they are pretty shy right now) if they will eat ostracods if I throw them in there at the same time as some flake food. Maybe I can kinda train them to eat ostracods (if they don't love them already). It seems like if fish that prefer live foods can be trained to pelletised/flake food then maybe they can be trained to live food but I'll just have to experiment.

Hey SciFairboy, apparently you're not the only one dealing with this problem. Things could be worse, I guess.

Little polliwogs’ found in Conn. drinking water
Thousands told to boil water as officials look for micro-organisms’ source
“This is what we are drinking,” he recalled Thursday. “We were disgusted. ... You shouldn’t be drinking in little odd things.”
The region’s water agency, the Metropolitan District Commission, identified the organisms as harmless copepods and rotifers and said they were appearing in water coming out of a treatment facility in Bloomfield. The organisms are clear and about the size of a sewing pin head, the agency said.
The state health department and the MDC are investigating to determine whether that problem involves improper filtration, a breach in supply or distribution lines, or some other problem with the way the water is stored and treated.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30374958/

LOL, how people would freak if they only knew. Most water treatment plants do little more than settle out some sludge before dumping sewage water back into the water supplies. The drinking water systems pump that water up into the systems usually only filtering it a bit and adding some chlorine or chloramine to it. Most people are breathing, eating, and drinking in little organisms all the time. Then some one runs a story on it and they are suddenly disgusted. Of course if there is a break in the line somewhere, who knows what else could be getting into the water.

Wow thats pretty interesting. I guess at least I dont have to drink the ostracods. Still hopefully I can control them with tetras. They seem to like certain plant roots better than others. They leave tomato roots alone but completely trim off and therefore severely stunt cuke roots. It will be interesting to find out if the tetras work because it might be a helpful solution to other systems like mine.

Where do you think I got the idea in the first place? Someone else had already used this to resolve their problem- I just happened to find the info and i am just passing it along.

Yes I know, I just mean if it works thats a little more info and knowledge of it working to solve the problem. And thanks again for the info . I probably wouldn't have found out about the idea if you hadn't of told me about it.

I'm glad I could help but do me a favor and post your results for everyone here and those who may come.

I will most certainly do that . I don't plan on just introducing the tetras into the grow beds and trying to observe if they work because that could be impossible. I'm going to introduce a large amount of ostracods into the small quarintine tank I have the tetras in so I can closely monitor whether or not they will consume them. Hopefully this way I can be sure they work and I won't be left wondering if they are helping or not.