Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

yep, got off my ass today and finally found a replacement seedling supplier. Have our first 3 trays of basil already on site, man tomorrow I will take a pic so you can see the difference... and cheaper too, and orders put in for 400 lettuce and 250 basil per fortnight starting the end of Jan. Fingers crossed this works out because not having a reliable supply means we can't be reliable either.

Good to hear Stu ... that's fast service...

the place I rang first only did basil, had 10 trays ready to go... they suggested I ring a second place, who was just around the corner, he only dioes lettuce lol so between the two of them we are sorted and they have managed to coordinate their delivery days. Dan picked up the stuff today and visited both places to organise it all. He said our whole setup would fit into ONE of their many seedling houses. Aparently a VERY large setup.

Hi Monya.....how's your system going.....Very interested in hearing your trials and tribulations as I think you are the only Aussie on the forum, having a go at a commercial AP venture.

The flood and drain system is kicking along very nicely. Making loads of green tomato relish for the markets, as well as our own pesto and tapenade etc.. Chanels linked to the f & d system were showing nute deficiencies beofre anything in the gb's so were were able to fix with iron chelate, now the channels are growing lettuces really well, apart from the goat damage
The shed is currently undergoing a re-plant after giving approx 60 kg's of basil and 40 of lettuce to the cows after the spider mites got an unfixable grip on it all. Evil evil critters they are... however, now that it is back on line, we should be harvesting again within 3 weeks.
The system is very hard to make a profit out of, and for anyone thinking of groewing stuff commercially I would suggest they contact me for the numbers, but with a new planting regime of more variety and some companion planting we hope to sort it out in phase 2.

How many fishand what volume of water are you running.

I have been toying with the idea for quiet a while now, so I am really interested in what your doing.

Do you have a market for the fish ???

Slaughter those cows now. That's pesto beef and I want a piece.

mmm pre seasoned wonder how long the flavour would last... have heard that the Japanese are extremely keen on lamb that has eaten olives and olive leaves... apparently leaves a very mild tasting meat.

Jessy

In the shed system we are running about 1400 6 inch silvers in 4000 litres with swirl and bead filters thru the 17 12 metre lengths of channel. When the bugs weren't around all the holes were ful and it was a lettuce and basil bonanza... then the bugs came and we were planted too densely and they nailed us.
About to bring it back to full production and add in another 10000 small silvers, some our own and some bought in, so should be plenty of nutes in an extra 4000 litres
Greenhouse system now running a few hundred 6 inch goldies and about a dozen or so silvers about 1 - 1.4 kg's. Fair bit of feed going in there, and still just got a nitrate reading lol. Total system volume is about 11000 litres of water, (5000 litre tank, 6000 litre sump) 10000 litres gravel.

Pad is down for the next greenhouse which will be a model on the current greenhouse system, but instead of nft add-on, we will try a DWC addon, hoping that the basil will be abvle to be left in longer and pruned more times before the roots get to the point where they block the chanels.

yesterday we finally started to finish the original greenhouse.. only 18 months since we commissioned the system We have extended it to 15 metres long, and now covered the lot with a single piece of plastic. With the plastic to the floor all round it was extremely hot in there, even on a mild day, so I have opened up the sides. I will make either removable or hinged panels for the sides so it can be closed off in the middle of winter. Water temps went from 14 to 20 with the enclosing of the structure, and that is 10000 litres of water in 24 hours or less and I could pretty much watch the tomatoes ripening. On a positive note, the goats can't get in anymore and the system is producing quite well, will nitrates still barely showing. We are going to add another 300 or so fish this week to see how hard we can push it. I have designed the system to cope with 250 kg's of fish, so we will see if it is possible A few changes happening here over the coming months... commercial production of fish is not viable unless you are doing it on a huge scale, so we will be basically just growing fish to eat ourselves and veg to eat and sell the excess at the markets. We will still be spawning the silvers each year, but not aiming to hold more than a few thousand silvers at any one time. On that note, we have an excess of about 2000 silvers that I don't want to hold on to, so if anyone wants some, they are 70 cents each plus freight. A box to Melbourne costs $50 freight, Sydney airport costs under $100.

a far journey from bending green house hoops on a tele pole, well done to be sure!

Cheers John

Tonight saw the re-commissioning of the woodfired heater in the shed system. The old pump had shat itself, so we installed a new one, flows 30000 lphr for 1 kw of power (FIIK if that is efficient but it seemed like the best we could get.) Bleed off thru the fire at 3 litres per minute. Fire lit, half an hour later, at that flow, water going in at 14 degrees, coming out at 23 Need to get it back up to around 18 so they keep strong and fit over the winter so each night I will light her up and see if we can do it. For us, it costs fuel for the chainsaw, and time, no extra power as it is just bled off the main pump. From my calcs, it would take 44 hours for the entire water volume of 8000 litres to go thru the heater. I am hoping that I can pick up the 4 degrees I need by the end of the weekend with the fire on continuously, then hold those tempos with the fire just on overnight from then on. time will tell.

Sounds a good plan Stu... have me fingers crossed for you mate....

last night we had frosts, so pretty bloody cold here, and the heater managed to pick up half a degree and the fire was well and truly out this morning when I looked.

Hey it's nice and warm where I am