Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone,

Until a couple of weeks ago i didn't know what Aquaponics was, that was when my partner brought home a magazine about it and I had a good read as I've always liked growing my own veggies and I like fishing too. It got me interested and she said she would buy me a system, well I couldn't say no to that! We got a courtyard system from BA and I finished assembling it last Saturday and now I'm hooked. Every morning and afternoon I'm out there checking the fish and plants-it's great!.

Looking forward to talking to you and sharing information, this forum has already given me alot of help with starting out.

Cheers!

Welcome to the world of Aquaponics Jeza I am sure there is more fun to be had as this is just the beginning.

JezaB

Its gotta be good!

Hello everyone,

It's been a long time since my last post but everything has been going pretty well with only one or two HSM. I thought i would post a couple of photos to show the progress of the system. I have got 24 trout in it (had 25 but one jumped out yesterday) so i put some netting over the tank to stop anymore jumping out. The system has really matured in the last month and the plants are growing really fast.

I was wondering if anyone could give me some ideas on expanding the system?
I was thinking on getting another growbed for this one and then getting another identical system and run them individually or should i get a bigger fish tank and just run 4 beds?

Cheers

Jeza

Looking good Jezza...

G'day Jeza

The system is looking pretty healthy !

About expanding, it's really going to come down to your personal preference.

Two separate systems gives you the advantage of keeping different fish types if you want, and decreases your chances of losing all the fish through a mishap occuring (e.g. pump dies).

However, two systems requires you to buy and run two pumps instead of one.

Really comes down to what you want and how much you want it.

Hey Jeza, things are looking pretty good eh
You can add another growbed to the 1000 litre tank that you already have, depends a bit on how you want it set up. You could also have 2 spearate systems and the other one could be a 2000 litre tank and 3 growbeds, depends how quick you want to expand I guess.
I noticed that there are a few holes in some of your leaves. As today is the first fine day I managed to get out and spray a bit of Dipel around our systems here to combat any caterpillars that might think it is nice weather for a feed. Late this afternoon I will be setting up the slug traps just in case they start moving around and munching, nip them in the bud is my plan.

Thanks for the advise chilli and faye, there are losts of options i'll just have to sit down and way up the costs and benefits of them and which one will fit in the backyard.

Yes faye there are a few holes in the cauliflower leaves. The bright green caterpillars love them, I didn't want to spray as it has been raining for a while so I have been catching them and feeding them to the trout which they seem to like.

Get some Dipel Jeza... that'll take care of the caterpillars... and is fish safe...