Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Gee, great growth there VB! Looks like you should go away more often! Thanks for the plants and seeds ya gave me, they get planted next week. You have also given me a lot to think over from our chat - chatting in person sure is a lot easier (you dont have to use smiles to make a point ) and just better!

Cool thing is with nitrates is that you can adjust your PPM via your feeding. Don't forget as the growth rate of your plants increase then so can your feeding while keeping the nitrates steady

You are in a good spot VB (AP system wise)

VB, Great pix of the fish. Size approx ?

They definately look like Christmas lunch VB, getting fat too, and you're right that water is crystal clear.

Thanks Muzz - it is hard to tell for sure, but biggest silvers would be a bit bigger than 25cm and the biggest jades about 15-18cm. I expect some good growth now that I am feeding them properly.

Stu/AM - Hope to have a fish or 2 ready to eat by XMAS, but I am not sure this will happen.

VB-Why not?

are you going to eat them before?

Approximately how old are the fish?? Just trying to get an idea of age / size ... I know that there is probably a few variables in there.

For those who have not followed my thread from day 1 (or even day 100 fro that matter), other than a couple of little silver runts that I bought early on (being sold as feeder fish), I bought my Silvers and Jades on 23 July 2006.

Here is an extract from the post that I made when I got home:

'As planned (see Veggie Boy's Album thread) I headed out to SEQ Fish today to get some fish. The plan was to make sure I got some now, ready for Spring, as it seems that many of the suppliers are running out and will not have new fingerlings until Summer/Autumn. The idea was to put them in my aquarium and nurse them through winter, then chuck them in the pond when the temperature increases.

Well laid plans often fail. Went fine with the Jades - picked up 15. They measure from 7.5 to 10cm each I would estimate (some may be bigger).

Problem was with the silver perch. There just weren't any small ones left. I was not keen to leave without any, so I ended up coming home with 1 small one (about 10cm) and 11 larger ones (up to 22cm).'

My fish have not experienced massive growth since then because the Jades were all in a 200 litre aquarium so could not be fed much (they also went through a bout of Ich at one stage) and the Silvers were in my outdoor pond at fairly low temperature and with just 1 very small (40 litre) grow-bed attached.

My big grow-bed has only been attached a few weeks and the system only stabilised from that change a bit over a week ago. All fish are in the pond now and a proper feeding regime has now started - so I expect decent growth leading into Chrsitmas - hopefully resulting in some silver perch for XMAS lunch.

Thought it was time for a few new photos. I going to have to bite the bullet soon and piss off that big tomato plant. It is taking over the whole bed and is shading out the tom plants that I planted straight into the gravel bed to the left of the original black bed (can't really see them, they are thickenning up, but need to get out of the shadows).

The concern of course is that this will reduce the nitrate removing capacity significantly. I might just trim it back heavilly at first. Although it wil be a shame to do this because it now has heaps of fruit on it, I just am not willing for it to take up the whole bed. Also I dod not really like this particular tomato all that much fresh. It is an italian drying tomato, used to make sundried tomatos.

What do you all think?

Some more:

seriously excellent VB. Are you flooding your bed right to the surface? The gravel looks wet. Man, you may not have fish by Xmas, but you'll be on your 5th batch of lettuces by then!

Thanks Stu - the bed does flood just above or around the surface in some places. I have not botherred adjusting this as during the day the gravel dries out in the 30 odd minutes between each full flood. The photo was taken tonight - does not dry out at night. Full dry out will not occur once the plants shade the surface fully, but algae will not be a problem then either.

You need more beds VB, It is looking good.
I can begin to see just how much this system con produce. Never need to buy lettuce again.
Aquaponics will easily pay for itself around here, we eat 3 or 4 kgs of tomatos a week at our place and they are always 3 or 4 dollars per kg at the supermarket
Muzza

I think I know where I can get some more grow-beds from Murray - am looking forward to you making them for me :-)

Went away this week for the yearly 5 night holiday. It never ceases to amaze me how much aqua plant can grow in this short timeframe.

Plant growth would have slowed a bit due to a nitrate deficiency. I was only able to get the fish fed once while I was away. I tested the water when I got home and the nitrate had dropped to 0. I normally run at about 80.

I will make a concerted effort to get the nitrate up over the next few days - by feeding the fish as much as they will eat. Although they fed today - they did not eat all that much. I think the drak conditions they live in (due to panda plastic over top of pond) is becoming an issue, so I will gradually reintroduce shadecloth and see if the algae becomes an issue again. By having the pond dark - the fish are not used to the sunlight so will only eat in the shadows. This can be an issue when feeding.

I have now started harvesting. I removed 2 lettuce from the system (the gaps can be seen in the below pictures) and have also harvested a fair bit of silverbeet and kale. Very nice tasting.

I have put some stakes in to control the room that the tomatoe plant is taking up. Although it is becoming a pain in the arse, I cannot bear to trim it back or remove it as there is heaps of fruit on it.