Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well, I think they enjoyed the silverbeet as much as the bugs did! I only put the silverbeet in at lunch time and six leaves were devoured like this one by evening!

Aahh healthy little fishies - grow, grow, grow!

thats awesome robyn!!!!

Robyn, came across the discussion on raised garden beds. Have you seen ours (in Bedfordale)? We make them from recycled sheets or cut-in-half rainwater tanks. You can cover the tops with recycled garden hose. Some pics attached.

Do you have a picture of your comets, black, changing and orange?

I plan to go to Faye's this Friday. Will you be there?

Wow Adrian - that is fantastic! I love the recycling aspect. Looks like you have a really productive garden there!

I have often grown vegies, and saw my raised garden beds at the garden show. I purchased them partly in an attempt to deny/control the aquaponic bug which was biting me (Thanks TimC!!!) I lacked confidence and thought my interest might be short-term and the setup etc would be more complex than I could manage.... However, after eighteen months of the itch, I had to give in and at least try and quell the aquaponic bug. Ordered enough AP stuff from Joel to fill the space outside my laundry, started by setting up only one fish tank and bed, but have been waiting the cooler weather so I can move the existing RGBs down the back to make room for the other half of my AP system!

Yes I will be at the Friday "do". Hope to meet you and others I only know by their posts there.

Oops - forgot to add that I don't currently have a photo of the chameleon comet - it seems to look different every couple of days - now it's tail and back fins are black but the black splotches are sometimes faded!! Will try for a photo later.

Oh NO! That oops posting made me a "valued contributor"! I enjoyed being a newbie - like I still feel new!

Wow - wasn't that a lot of rain!! Filled my fish tank right to the top - I usually leave it about 12-15 cm below top! Also filled my 9000l rainwater tank, and a leak in my gutter filled the extra wheelie bin I placed there to save some water! And now the ground is not so dry, I can go dig up some LARGE weeds from the front verge!

Fishies are fine, measurements are good. Seems the rain brought the PH down - usually 7.8 - 8.0! The plants should love the lower PH!!

Temp 20C
PH 7.4
Ammonia < 0.5
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 40

Caterpillars have decimated my silverbeet - but oh how the fishies love it when I catch the caterpillars and drop them in!! The chives are really struggling, and celery going slow, but pak choi, broccoli, peas, and beetroot are going great. Have also put in a few cuttings from the native Alyogyne and citronella geraniums to see if they root so I can plant them out on the verge.


Specially for Adrian, I have attached a photo of my chameleon comet - now orange like he started, but with black tail and dorsal fin!

Looking good, the fish look very healthy!

How big are the tilapia getting? and the perch?

Nic

Nic - most of the perch are between 8 and 12cm all with big fat tummies!

The smallest Tilapia still seem very tiny, with the larger ones are now about 5-6cm. I try to add smaller size food for the little ones, but not sure how much is taken by the others. However, all fishies look happy, though they always seem to be looking for food whenever I go out the back door!

Robyn - Dipel from yates (Bunnings/Waldecks/Nursery/Joels Shop) works well on caterpillars

Well, have had five days annual leave and the Anzac Holiday so set myself a list of outside jobs to do – Leave is finished and only achieved 31 out of the 71 jobs on the “to do” list! However, as some of those jobs were quite involved, I am NEARLY happy about my progress. Once again, I enlisted some help for the heavy stuff. Wonderful work colleague David helped on a couple of days – hope it was not just because I am his boss!! No, probably it was the financial incentive I offered him!!

Started by clearing out most of the native garden down the back, repositioning some of the plants to the verge, chopping up others to put at the bottom of the raised garden beds being repositioned (see below!), and stripping the leaves from a giant oleander so over the next three weeks I can put those in the normal rubbish collection bin! (Yes I know the oleander is not a native, but it has been here for about thirty years!! And it was too large to move when I put in the Native garden. Now it was really necessary to move it and as necessity is the mother of invention … I figured out how to move it. Needless to say, it involved the use of that BYAP tool - the chainsaw!!) Once the leaves are out of the way, I will chop the “nude” branches into small pieces and place those in the bin too over the following few weeks – I wanted to get rid of the leaves before they blew everywhere making my job so much larger! I was wary of composting the oleander as I have heard they are poisonous – what do people think?

Now, the whole reason for removing the native garden was to make room for the repositioning of my existing raised garden beds, so the next job was to move the RGBs down the back and into position. Having done so, this freed the lovely, rich soil built up in these RGBs from past “no dig” lucerne, manure, compost etc so this was moved down to the back, but not yet put IN the RGBs. Why you ask would I not transfer the soil directly?

Well, the whole reason for moving the RGBs was to make room for the second ft and gb setup I purchased at the same time as my first system and setting this system up required that another HUGE hole had to be dug, and where was the sand from this HUGE hole to go? Yes, it was to go at the BOTTOM of the RGBs. Having dug the hole AND moved the sand (and the branches, leaves etc from the native garden) to its final resting place at the bottom of the RGBs, it was time to put the good soil in on top!

Placed the ft inground, positioned the wonderful gb stands level, cleaned and moved the gb into position. Levelled the surrounding area, covered with weed matting (temporary solution only!), filled the ft from the rainwater tank, moved one of the small 50 litre green crates of hydroton from system #1 and began pumping with a small temporary pump setup. Have also fitted drain to gb2 and am ready to wash hydroton etc.

Now any “normal” person would think this is enough to do during a holiday break, but I have never claimed to be “normal” so I set myself another ginormous task. I was embarrassed about my shed looking so very untidy, (being even more squishy than F&Fs but not with such cool stuff), and tired of not even being able to safely walk in the door, so I ordered shelving and benches. I moved stuff until there was room to set up the first set of shelves, moved more stuff until there was room to set up the second etc until there was actually room to sweep the floor! Everything is now OFF the floor and on a shelf, though not yet in its final, carefully planned and organised position - and of course I cannot find anything I need at the moment Still, winter should be a good time to finish sorting and organising!!

Now it has taken so long to write this “summary” I really need to go wash that hydroton!!

Sounds like you are having lots of fun Robyn. Are you going back to work for a rest tomorrow? Look forward to seeing your new sytem and backyard.

yes i know what you mean i put shelf in the shed and moved everything off the floor [took a week to fill it up again]

OBO - Thanks - I did buy some dipel but have found the number of caterpillars has diminished greatly - still feed the odd one to the fish who relish them! A bigger problem at the moment are little white flies - I still pick them off one by one and squish them. Anyone have any other ideas?

Oh Faye - my knees and back were loudly singing the Hallelujah chorus about their reprieve with me going back to work, but this was, at times, drowned out by that part of me that just LOVES the freedom of holidays singing "Oh No! Here we go again!"

F&F - only a week to fill up the space again - you are obviously more practiced at it than me! I am hoping to stick by a resolution I use in the house - nothing new comes in unless something old goes out!! Don't ya just love the concept of resolutions??

F&F,

I hope this doesn't sound rude, but ...



Your .sig is "broke". It has 2 spelling mistakes!