Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Heh fair enough. I was only using 20 because it was the number fishfodder posted. I'd agree anything over 0 (within reason) is good

Wait till you get reading like this. The algae bloom this feed gave the fish such a growth spurt.

Thanks Duff
point was to seek a balance
where ammo, n-rite, n-rate. are constantly changing, balancing
so a test at 10am could be vastly different at 10pm
so which is correct early or late... so you do a series of tests and find an average...
after the system is relatively stable ' Cycled ', you can almost forget your test kit...
If the plant growth is poor you will know...
If the growth is like mine you will be stoked and won't
' add' 'touch' the system bar fish food and collect harvest
and plan and plant Its a tough life but someones' got to do it

haha - I'll revise my previous statement (been a while since Ive looked at my test kit, thought it went higher than 100). Aquarium was always run less than 80 nitrate, fry tank at less than 20.

Yes I remember reaching the max on the card and the algae was crazy. Took hours to clean the tanks (is what happens when you go on holidays for a few weeks and fish are over fed).

Hours to clean. I had 50000ltr of it. And I was trying not to feed the fish. The silvers just looked at me and went back to eating the algae.

Help, AP is taking over the backyard.

Expansion to the shed/greenhouse to house another grow bed and future yabbie/hospital system.

I had an idea about this today.

If you have sick fish and want to remove them to another tank, would a yabbie system be suitable? Do yabbies suffer from Ich and other fish diseases and can they become infected by a disease by eating a sick fish. Yabbies can tolerate some salinity so a dose of salt wouldn't hurt them.

Bit cruel on the fish maybe, "get well or death by yabbie"

I also found an easy way to hang shade cloth, string some wire and put curtain ring through the edge of the shade cloth. Fully retractable shade

They make a plastic clip to hook the shade cloth to the wire. Mitre10 or B's should have them. It holds more of the cloth so it does not pull free. But if wind is not a problem then I'd stick with the curtain ring.

I didn't think of the the wind issue I'll have to put all my rings in further on the cloth.

On the yabbie issue, is anyone aware of fish diseases that affect yabbies or vis-versa? I have been searching but can't find any.

Yabbies can live in water up to 12ppt salinity. So the yabbie/hospital/new fish quarantine system looks like a real possibility.

I think TClynx was looking at something similar some time back and asked about salt tolerant plants. The only ones I can find are Celery, Spinach and possibly beetroot.

Does anybody have other edible vege suggestions for a salty system?

Thanks in advance.

Snake beans, clmbing spinach and chilli do Ok Passionfruit doesn't seem to be too bothered aswell...

FF Why 12ppt on the salt? Yabbies may be able to tolerate it but I doubt they would like it and there are few fish I would quarantine at those sorts of levels.

12ppt might be OK as a very short term disease dip.... Barra and Bream might tolerate it...

But I'd go 3-4ppt... to treat most things ... and keep the plants happy....

The problem I had recently was a lot of fish flashing and a few deaths. I salted the system to 3/4 parts and a lot of my plants stalled or died. Spinach didn't mind, tomatoes curled up their toes, and as expected strawberries carked it.

I want to create a second yabbie friendly system anyway (higher calcium, gravel in the bottom of the tank etc) and it occured to me that a yabbie tank with say 4/5 ppt could double as a quarantine/hospital tank as long as the plants attached to it could handle it.

I did think of bream also, but I think the yabbies would come of a very poor second.

My comment on yabbies tolerating 12 ppt was just meant to indicate that the levels of salt we use would be no issue for them, sorry for the confusion.

My hospital tank is connected into my yabbie system ... although I can isolate it... and I've treated SP's with both salt and formalin without the yabbies showing any signs of stress... 3-4ppt shouldn't trouble most veges... strawberries definitely... cucumbers can be touchy as well...

FF

Flashing could Imho be due to a number of causes indicates stress or irritation: high nitrites, only need small salt, ich you should see it, high nitrates more plants, if they were coming to the top even low DO etc.
Didn't mean to sound the way I did

Interesting you say salted to 3 or 4 and a lot of plants died or stalled at 3 or 4 ppt the only thing that carked it should have been strawberries i run around 3 all the time and have Basel tomato Collie cabbage passion fruit grape corn .How much water do you have and how much salt did you put in