Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey Bluefin... nice to see you're up and running mate...

i have updated my system pipe work. I decided to bite the bullet and actually buy some fittings. I used 40mm pressure pipe for the main feed with 15mm branches off it. I have the option of upsizing from the tee as they are all 40mm female bsp thread. The idea is to purchase a jumbo ft and drain through the 40mm to the beds, ie chift pist. i have 25 assorted feeder fish and un colored goldys. My nitrites and nitrates are up and so is my amonnia. The nitrites have only gone from zero to 0ne in the last two days
16/07 ammo 1 n02 0 n03 5 ph 7.4
19/07ammo 1 n02 .5 n03 5 ph 6.8
20/07 ammo 1 n02 1 n03 10 ph 7.6
I have broad beans in one bed, herbs in another. lettuces in another bath and broadcast seed straight into the gravel in bed no 1 . One bed is reserved for my san marzarno tomatoes. The plants seem to be doing ok. the system has been running about three weeks now. All the auto syphons are working and no hick ups to date.

sorry about the pic orientation could a moderator please rectify? How long before i can ad edible fish?.. Does my system seem like it has cycled? i did use lots of pond scum from an existing system. I made the " hanging gardens of fabulon" from 5 recycled krugelhoff pans from the local lifeline. I havnt planted them out yet but im thinking edible herbs for cullinary purposes.

You're still cycling by the looks of your tests Bluefin....

Should see the ammonia readings drop to zero very soon.... followed shortly after by the nitrite readings.... nitrates will probably start to climb... and/or your plants will suddenly "explode"....

Then's the time to add your fish.....

I had to turn the monitor on its side

I'd say one to two weeks before adding fish, plan for weekend after next, and it should all be good.

I recon the plants will fall out,,,gravity sucks.

Nice set-up,congrat's.

are you choosing sleepy cod or jades, while i'm waiting to rebuild my system, i'm buying them from china town, and i can tell you that sleepy cod are very versatile/forgiving to cook, you can basically do anything with them. Jades are only suitable for certain types of cooking, BBQ being my favourite for jades.
Sleepy cod are also freakish in their ability to survive...

hi alex, im thinking jade as they are omniverous and i can suppliment thier feed with vege matter. They can also cope with higher temps as that is going to be my problem in summer. I have researched both, sleepy cod take much longer to grow out and eat more because of it. However the reasearch claims sleepy cod are the best tasting freshwater fish in australian waters. A pretty indisputable claim, cod are rumoured to be pretty agressive and can attack each other. So in short i still havnt decided yet, once the system has cycled then ill make the decision. Have you had experience with sleepy cod. We have them in the local dam and they are a native fish of the dawson catchment area. The dee river is part of the dawson catchment.

I was checking AussyFish for some barra (no stock this season ) and noticed they have sleepy cod in stock now, the cons I found were...territorial, carnivorous, slow growing and need to be weaned onto pellet food

...might give them a go tho and try and keep them away from my SP...that's when the water temp gets up a bit

ekb i read that the teritorial tendencies diminish if the ft is heavily stocked. I have been informed that s cod are virtually indestructable and can cope with fluctuating temps and oxygen levels. They sound like a good first fish choice as i have not kept fish untill my foray into the ap world.

Relatively slow growing and if you can't keep water temps up they are REALLY slow.
I'm yet to eat an actual Sleepy,,but I can assure you their very close cousins ( Marble Goby) are FANTASTIC eating,,,it's virtually compulsary that these are served at Chinese weddings (delicacey).

i don't have any experience growing sleepy cod, yet.. but then most fish i touch seem to die.

however a couple of months ago, i got a live sleepy cod from a chinatown on the other side of town, i ordered it prepared (ie guttered, scaled and dead). when i got home 40mins later, my inlaws freaked when she realized it was gutted, scaled and still alive. (the fish was wrapped in butchers paper, carried in a plastic bag.) I was a bit freaked too. We joked that we should put it into my fish pond.

So while i'm not surprised if they don't grow well, i reckon they should be resilient.

Oh yeah, the inlaws described the fish as being versatile, ie suitable for cooking any way and they own restaurants. They don't describe jade perch as being versatile, there are only a few ways to cook jade nicely.

what i've read about sleepy cod is they are picky eaters, whereas jades are supposedly easy to please.

here is a photo of my current system i have added another 3 baths. They are sitting in an old trampoline frame from the dump. All i have to do now is to install my bell syphons and finish of the water supply line as i ran out of fittings. Im using 25mm blueline poly as my stand pipe and 32mm dwv as the outer. Although i have a 32mm standpipe with a 90mm outer and it drains the fastest. The dirt in the foreground is my room to expand. In the earlier photos i had two massive silky oak logs. Last week a mate took them to the mill and cleared a bit of space. I washed the gravel in the baths and connected about 30m of 32mm hose to the outlet and used the dirty water to water the fruit trees and dirt garden. The water is running clear now so i can hook up to the system as soon as the syphons are up and running. The plan is to get the beds flood and draining prior to the fish arriving on monday or tuesday. Because the pump delivers 18000 lts an hour the first bath is draining back to the sump in under three mins. the result is the water level only drops about 200mm in the main sump/ft. My next problem is how to get the goldies out of the tank, before i add the s perch. I have a cast iron bath arriving i thought i would put the goldies in it . Would one deep bath be big enough for thirty odd goldies? I have a small aquarium pump and i will hook it up so it is seprate from the main system.

more pics