Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I had 5 very small SP turn up dead in my GBs. I figure they must have been hiding in the pump before I took it out to put on a finer mesh. (edit: BAD assumption!) I did dunk the pump in a bucket hoping any fish inside would swim out, but it was dark & late. In hindsight, I should have just turned the pump on for 30 seconds, checked the GBs & returned any watersliders to the FT.

Anyway, apart from that, things are going swimmingly!

Water quality is good. Seeds sprinkled in the GBs are sprouting. I've added some shellgrit & the PH has stopped falling. (How long does it take to buffer ~1500L to PH=7.4?) Fishies look happy, though I've no idea if the comets are eating the smaller SP - too hard to see them in the FT.

I just wish it would rain so I can divert some rainwater into the FT. Another 1000L or so would give me a 2500L system, I think that will be ideal.

Hey scottie, I know your pain, I had 4 in the basket filter of my pool pump... 1 died before I got there. Lucky it was only 1 but it still irritated me.

With 400 - I reckon you can absorb a couple of losses KP. The thing is that long term most of the cost of the fish is in the food and the energy. This means that IF you are going to lose a fish - it is better to lose it when small.

Hi team,
great system scottie! My brother in Fremantle said that he was feeding the barra fingerlings in his system 5 times a day; surely this does not continue as they grow bigger? Andrew

Never looked at it that way vb - nice one

Highlander, can't talk on barra, but I started with 4 feeds/day for SP fingerlings....when the food intake plateaued, I reduced it to 3 feeds (after about having them for nearly 2 months)...as they grow and plateau again, I will just do morning and evening feeds.

Believe barra would follow along the same way although they do eat (and grow) a lot quicker than SP

Grobest pellets arrived today. I crushed them up & fed them to my SP ... they weren't very interested.

Just for fun, I netted some mosquito larvae out of a pond in the garden & put them in ... Boy did that get a reaction!!!

So, any problems feeding a few mosquito larvae every now & then? Do I have to worry about contaminants from my pond?

Another problem. One of my waterbeds (containing ~20 SP) is starting to grow quite a bit of algae. It gets a large amount of sun 'til noon-ish. I've had laserlite over it for quite a while but it does not seem to be helping. What can I do?

& wtf am I gonna do with 15kg of Grobest pellets that aren't very appetising to my fish!?

just keep feeding them, they should get the message. don't feed much if they don't eat, but feed regularly, so they come to expect it.

Does the food float or sink scottie. I'd not feed them anything else until they are properly weaned onto the pellets. As it is they are probably harvesting algae and filling up on that.

They're floating pellets, but when crushed some of the pieces sink.




What's the rationale for that, VB?



Hmmm, I wish they'd eat more of it!

Yep Scottie, just crush up a small amount and feed them that and get them to accept that...if you feed them other delicacies they won't take so quickly to the pellets.

Algae needs light to survive so is the laserlite the see through stuff???

That way they will get hungry

Hi LKB,



sorta - it's tinted, like sunglasses. Blocks out quite a bit of light but definitely not 100%. Not acceptable huh? Hmmmm, I'll have to think about my options.



Ah! Condition them to eat it huh!? Like mum did with me & brussell sprouts when I was just a little thing. You know, I STILL don't like brussell sprouts ... I could eat them if I HAD to ... I'd have to be literally starving though!

I wonder if the conditioning technique would work on my chooks? - the ladies are spoilt rotten! They want fresh corn, & ham & yoghurt ... little princesses they are! Whenever I feed them grain & green leafy veggies I can tell they're thinking "what's all this then? ... you expect me to eat THAT?"

Try soaking the pellets and then, when soft, just mush them up. Much easier than crushing.

Tony

Try to mix a few blood worms and a drop of fish oil with some crushed pellets, let the pellets take the taste, usually it takes 10 to 15 days to wean fish properly, still with the "P" word, good luck

amacafish

*frack* More fish turning up dead in the growbeds!! Not happy!

When I blocked off the waterslide, I didn't realise there was another entrance on the underside of the pump (see picture). If the pump doesn't sit flush on the bottom of the tank (possible I guess) then the poor little fishies get to meet their makers.

So I've got a better fish bouncing system in place - in the form of some shadecloth cable-tied to the entire bottom section of the pump.

On a more positive note, it's been raining!!! For fishies, that means a larger playground.

Covered both the waterbeds with shadecloth - I'm hoping that will solve my algae problem. How long does algae take to die? Can I expect the surface of my growbeds to clear up? or do I need to clean them somehow?