Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

get a hive yourself?

if you cant gat somewon to take it away free .An old bee keepers trick after dark go out with a can of Mortein surface spray one long squirt in the hole they will b=;'r of to a nice tree somewhere[how do i know used to be a bee keeper 200 hives]

No thanks Steve I have enough on my plate no bees.
Alex

Still got the bees we have tried every trick suggested by forum members to no avail.

some pics.

No 1 General view with inside bath and through the wall the 2nd bath see pic 1. The baths are flood and drain back via the strawberry pipe to the sump.

Pic no 2 The pots are Vietnamese Mint and Coriander + Flat leaf parsley.
The pots flood and drain direct to the sump.

Tonight empty 1/2 can in the hole [are you useing mortien surface spray]

Did not have any mortien just some atlas surface spray so we emptied a can into the hole, fingers crossed.
Alex

Hi All,
I have made up a strawberry tower from 90mm stormwater pipe and planted the strawberries into rockwool type pots.
I do not like the final result as the rockwool never dries out.
I am worried that the plants will get collar rot and I could lose the lot.

Any ideas out there?

The bees have vacated the premises.

The roof is finished and we have much more light in the growing area.

The trout are growing like mushrooms water still around 19o and the room 28/30o.
Alex

An observation,
It appears that our plants growing in scoria are doing much better than those in washed white gravel with approx 10% sand in it. This could be due to the white gravel never drying out completely.
The root systems on all plants is better developed in those growing in the scoria than the white gravel.
We have planted strawberries into pots filled with both scoria and white gravel in the drain pipe. Will post the results in a month or so.
Alex

My strawberry tower.

My plan was:-
1) to build a tower that did not require filtered water just the water used in the GBs.
2) that it could be watered from the same feed as that supplying the GBs.
3) To use 90mm storm water pipe to keep the costs down.

In the first tower I used rock wool to plant into. These remained to wet and I feared collar rot would kill the strawbs. That tower is now in the scrape heap.

The 2nd tower is working like a charm.
It has one pipe supplying water to it.
It has pots incorporated into the tower each filled with scoria for each strawberry.

The construction method:-
1) Cut 90mm pipe to required length, mine are 2000mm.

2) insert first pot up from the bottom of the 90mm pipe (tower), fix a roof screw below the bottom of the pot to hold it in place. The pot was just under a neat fit.

3) cut the pipe above the lip of this first pot into about a third of the pipe width. With a heat gun heat the area above the cut and press this area in to form an indentation. This allows you to plant into the pot below and also holds the next pot in place.

4) insert your 2nd pot from the top down to the top of the first indentation.Then repeat the procedure as in (2).

Just repeat this until you have all the planting holes you can fit into your length of pipe.
The spacing is determined by the depth of the pot used with allowance for it sitting on the top of the indentation. If hanging on a wall you could have all the plant holes on one side.

To plant, stand the tower in a small squat bucket to catch spilled gravel.
Fill each pot with gravel whilst holding plant with roots down into the pot.
Be careful, you only get one go as it is very hard to plant if the pot is full of gravel and hard to empty it.
Good Luck
Alex

Re pics below:-

1) the tower spacings I have used.

2) the taps which will also supply to future towers via a 19mm clear hose to each which allows you to see the flow into the towers. The tower hangs on the 30mm gal pipe which will take three or four more if required.

3) the successful tower.

Alex

The bottom of the tower draining into the sump.

Note the pots sitting in the sump. These sit on a stand. As the pump operates we have a flood and drain system that does not require feed from the pump.

Alex

Looks good Alex. Unfortunately a lot of members found that these towers - particularly as narrow as yours, were prone to clogging.

Hi VB,
It has a good flow of water going through it and even if the strawbs produce an enormous root mass I do not think it will clog.
After a full season it may slow down but you should be able to pull the plant out trim the roots and replant if it does clog. The root mass will stick to the scoria and come clean from the pot.
However one should never say never. I will keep all posted as to the overall result good or bad.
Alex

Hopefully you will not have probs

Sorry alex, but your wrong, and multiple people have proven it so.

But give it a go anyway