Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

First post, have to start somewhere

First of all I would like to thank Joel and Faye for their welcome, help and advice. We are inspired. To all the people on the forum, Hi, I've justed begun reading and learned a lot already.

Had a 'temporary' system inplace now for about 3 month wich was a single growbed, small pump, 1000L Fish and drain tank, with 5 goldfish and 30 feeder fish. Bed is Backyard supply and Hydro.

That all changed on the weekend, in fact just finished it now.

5000L tank, 30 trout, 2 growbeds, 2 Ebara's, and the 1000L drain (still with goldfish and about 10 feeders). The main tank is 12 meters from the beds, hence the name. Most other systems seem to be reasonably close together. I have but one fear - A burst pipe

PH currently 7.2, trout greedy as ever, and some of the under nourished plants starting to come to life.

Will stick with 2 beds over winter, probably get another 30 trout this weekend and head toward 5 for the Barra season.



Cheers

looking good, full speed ahead and welcome

Welcome benson! Looking good indeed, good luck

Love those GBs mate, look really well made...waiting to see another half dozen or so connected

Welcome to the forum

Nice to see it coming together Benson... Can't wait to see the BIG tank plumbed into the system as well...

What a great start Benson, ..you don't do things by halves, I see.
Welcome to the madness.
In the Long Run, I'm sure you will have fun and we will all benefit

Nice grow beds - what are they worth to buy? Are the poly or fiberglass? WHere from?

Looking really professional - huge fish tank! 5000L thats massive!

Hamish, the beds are supplied through Backyard Aquaponics, they are a molded plastic, I think Joels design (correct me if I am wrong). They are not cheap but very light, maintain shape and really easy to work with. Not sure where you are located but Joel is in Perth.

Got home from work and it was already dark, hate these compressed days, never seem to have enough time.

The tank still needs some work to tidy up the plumbing, but thats what weekends are for...

Question - Any harm in adding small amounts of seaweed extract to initially give the plants a bit more nutrients, did try it on the 1000L stage 50mg to 800L approx, just not game to with trout - if need be. Just impatient - want my vegies....

Trout dont mind seasol - they are swimming in brown water right now

Might just have to dose them up while the weather is still in the 20's..

Its actually handy - while adding seasol to the sump, you can watch how fast the brown water moves in the main tank. I was surprised how quickly it travels

I am so excited to see what you guys have done in the last few days. Happy to see that the trout are doing so well. I like to use the seasol as a foliar feed and spray it on to the leaves allowing a little to drip down into the growbed, this will be circulated through the system. It wont be long before the feed and trout will be doing their thing and you wont have to worry about seasol to boost them along. Good work you guys and nice to see you arrived at the forum. Apologies, there is no way out now, it is just like a spiders web, you cannot leave.

Somehow the other half noticed I said 5 beds, only discussed where I was going to put the other '2'. Need to reorganize the garden anyway ..

Have shovel and welder, perfect gardening tools

On the agenda as well is Solar / Wind battery bank with inverters, some sort of synergistic watering system to drip feed the soil garden from the tanks, some strawberry towers (they will probably be used the drip feed the garden - volume will be the trick) and maybe even a computer based controller (that would just be fun).

Faye you are probably right.