Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Howdy all. Yes! I'm new to AP, i setup a small barrel system using a small 200 litre system. The FT is about 100 litres and have 10 goldfish in it. The grow bed is directly above with one carrot plant. The system has been circulating since Saturday, so very much early days yet. I have started with such a small system so i can get my head around the ins and outs of the whole thing. My mind is already spinning with what i would like to expand to. One thing for sure is that i would like to build it all from recycled items as best i can, yeah I'm a tight arse . I will get some photos of it up as soon as i work out how to.

Welcome Mike Foster, theres no such thing as 'tight ass' in AP. Glad to have you on board and look forward to some system pics.

Welcome Mike

From Adelaide also

Enjoy the ride

Yes we like pictures

Sent from my GT-I9100T using Tapatalk 2

one week down. Fish are still alive, plant numbers have increased and are looking ok. i am still messing around with the flow rate, trying to get 4 complete cycles per hour. i can see this will always be something to be adjusting. one thing that i am struggling with is the PH. it is really high. i am using mains water and have noticed that since our lovely desalination plant was kicked in the guts that i am constantly adjusting my tropical aquarium with acid buffer, which is fine as i do not intend on eating these guys. So, how do i adjust the PH organically so i can eat the fish and plants. i currently have gold fish with this set up but this is just the test bed for a larger system. our rain water has a good level of PH but we are waiting for it to rain, to fill our tank.
how do i attached photos from camera or phone when it keeps suggesting that the file is too big?

Hi mike do a search using the search key up top, try Adjusting high PH and see what happens.

Recycling is the best way and more fun envisaging what you can use when ever you see something interesting during the week

Resize the photos to 800X600 and all will be good There is plenty of free software available for re-sizing photos.

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how do i attached photos from camera or phone when it keeps suggesting that the file is too big?[/quote]
gday mike
the easy way is to use paint on most windows format computers
you can resize form that

Back at it, sorry its been soooo long to continue my story. Things have been slow. I have now expanded my blue barrel system. The expansion firstly began with the addition of an old trough of somesort that has been hanging around for the last 12 years. I sealed the
Inside with pond sealer and painted the outside. It has a bell siphon (aphnan's) and drains to the sump. Over the christmas period, we experienced stupid hot conditions. The result was I lost all but 5 of my 20 goldfish. I knew that there was no way silver perch and definately not trout would survive the water temps swinging so much. So in came ibc number one to the rescue. I have positioned it in the garden shed, out of direct sun light. The only problem that I faced was the 800 litres of mains water has killed the bacteria in the grow beds and the plants has slowed in their growth. Most recently I have aquired 8 acrylic bath tubs. So one has been setup as onother gb. Fish wise I now have 15 gold fish and around 30 redfin fingerlings. Caught the redfin at a local lake, which will be put into anaquarium once I get my first order of trout.)

First attempt at attaching photos, out door set up of GB'S and sump. The ibc in the garden shed.

Looks great, Mike. What goodies are in the floating basket?

Howdy Charlie, I have the redfin in there, as the are so small and I didnt want to restrict the slow or have them eaten by the gold fish. There is approximately 30 in there.

The ibc FT has a few unexpected visitors.as on thursday morning our dishwasher caught on fire and destroyed the entire house. What a bloody mess. The structuree is fine but we wont be living in there anytime soon. So I had to quickly save the remaining tropical fish and plonk them into the aquaponics setup. What a shock for them. Giing for 25 degrees to 15 but the upside is they now have 800 litres to swim around in. They have all survived so far. Im going to try and get the aquarium clean up today and re setup on top of the ibc but its going to be fun trying to catch the tetras. So small in that big tank. While we wait for the insurance company to do there thing im going to have all my spare time to expand the AP and dirt garden. Ive been constructing a wicking bed and thats now planted out with seeds. And ive begun the GB expansion with two bath tubs. I have another ibc sitting there and am thinking of making a second FT for the trout. So I might cut its top off today a start cleaning it. Just looking for anything to do to take my mind off the house.

That's terrible news, you must be gutted. At least nobody was hurt (I hope). Makes me worry about when we put on our dishwasher before we go to bed.

Is it fixable? Or knock down and rebuild?

Bad luck mate hope all comes good. If using town water check what sort of chlorine they use. Always fill some barrels with the water and aerate for a couple of days before adding for chlorine.

Most likely be in Adelaide in two weeks for a week so hope to catch up with a few members. Cheers.