Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi janet got any tips for cabbage moth

Cabbage Worms--little soft green caterpillars? Any soft-bodied caterpillar will respond to any of these:
Bt - (aka Dipel) is a bacteria called "Bacillus thuringiensis ". It is dusted on to the plants so that the caterpillars eat it. Very effective and shouldn't harm fish, although I haven't tried it.
DE - Diatomaceous Earth - essentially chalk dust, and the small quantity you use should not affect pH. It cuts the skin of the caterpillars so they dry out.
Hand picking and tossing into the fish tank. Yummy!!
Inpsect the undersides of leaves for egg clusters. Squish'em.

Garlic sprays and neem oil are two other organic gardening remedies...

Here's a link for organic remedies... haven't tried them all....

Organic Remedies

A quick update, fish and plant growth is good (not explosive yet though...)

i am going to scrap the raft, the lettuces sprout, but soon die off (im guessing once the roots grow deeper and are always wet...rot)

hmm I am getting the same thing. Sprouts but quickly keels over.

If you are sure it is root rot - then you need to try increasing DO. Although it is preferable for simplicty to do this to the whole volume of water (by using waterfalls or air in the fish tank - for instance) - as a test put an air stone in the DWC recepticle and see if this makes any difference. What is your nitrate level Daniel. Do you have a nitrate test kit David - if so what is the level?

Also guys - what is your rate of water turnover in the DWC and where does it enter and where does it exit.

i will test the nitrate level tomorrow,last week nitrates were at around 20ppm
The raft is in the fish tank, which as a turnover of 1.2- 2.2 times per hour (exact head and flow loss is not known). The water returns via a waterfall, where there is a wall of bubbles drawn down with the water flow. I have an "emergency aerator" which i run when its extra hot, or i have an algal bloom, which was running under the raft 24/7.......

Well this systems life is almost over. Continuous flow, hasn't realy done much for me, and the pond liner has half a dozen holes....

I have aquired 2 approx 2000L tanks which will become the tanks for my new system, running as F&D .....i took photos but the camera has dissapeared

Last pic.....

New system here
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... highlight=

Ok this is not an easy thread to reply to so I hope ya don't find this jumbled reply too disconcerting or ot......

Geez not half the most helpful methyl blue label ever! nice post easyihzy!


reg: black goldy... ->Cassius auratus comes in many colours, shapes and features. LOL thats whats so good about breeding goldfish. You have whats called a nymph... or in dog terms a mongrel that didn't make the grade. They still make good pets but are often 'culled' by selling them to petshops by breeders. They used to be cheap but now nymphs seem to be in vogue and they are close to same price of properly formed fish.

As too colour most 'black moors' turn gold before getting full size. That is why fullsize blackmoores are so expensive. Depends on the person but I can always pick one goldy out of a new batch of 1000 that I wanna buy hey. So many individuals.


Fantails and fancys are usually older than they look so can breed when very small. If you have a little fat fish thats prob ya mature girl.

There is an interesting technique where a pond is half covered with plants or shadecloth or whatever. The shaded water sinks and drags warm water from the sunny half over to the shaded side... sorta a convection current effect. Never really played with it much but done right it does work. Case of using heated water to oxygenate (well at least bring up water high in co2 to degas) the water....


Can I get some details on your solar powered aerator?
Like the idea of these things I do but yet to buy one.

BENTONITE CLAY!!!!!!!!
my favourite type of clay.
also known as fullers earth, geo-liquid, koi clay, wine clarifier, grease spill clay, greasy clay and even detox eating clay.
Oh ya it also seals ponds super good
Serious if you want to google a wonder thing and ya sick about reading about spirulina, earthworms and duckweed then bentonite clay is the stuff.
But ya usually quite cheap to buy it by the truckload to line bigger ponds... not a liner but ya.
A truckload of industrial grade... not human eating grade. Depending on what it's sold for theres a different price per kg... prob around $30kg for human eating grade. Handy thing to have a sack layin' around of... never know when someones gonna drop some gnarly chemical and ya need something to soak it up hey.
Would bentonite clay clog expanded clay filter bed media?
I mix it with fish food sometimes, kinda instead of adding flour... holds it together a bit.

Black worms usually need pretty filthy cool water to do well

Have you considered running a simple round black airpoweder sponge filter instead of just an airstone? Kept in the pond it will be able to cure algae blooms (can be a bit of ammonia) quicker than just an airstone.

Thanks for the info Don. Yep, i have to males and two females. It took taking them inside and doing a controlled spawn to see what sexes i had, because they all had fat egg shaped bodies. (coincidently the fattest one i was sure was a female developed the breeding tubercles, so that technique didn't work that time)

My "solar powered aerator" was abit of a fizz. I bought an ell cheapo battery powered aerator, and just removed the battery and connected in a small solar pannel instead. It worked well for the first two days, but then it kept jamming. If you gave it a solid tap it would start up again for a couple of minutes, and then stop. I was going to research how to set it up with a light sensor and a battery so it came on at night. But didn't bother as the aerator wasn't good enough....

when i have abit of free time i will try searching bentonite clay....

Here is a safe and organic spray that I have used and it is safe for humans as well.

It is called Bacillus Thuringiensis or BT for short and it works awesome. It is a bacteria that attacks the worms digestive system and kills them in a day or two.

Good Luck

This is the same spray that we use in Australia marketed unded the name Dipel and it works well although needs to be reapplied on a regular basis.

Hmmm interesting about bentonite... The old man told me it was cost prohibitive to line his dam with Bentonite.