Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

they are old fibreglass sheets, a bit furry in places. What would you recommend using to coat it please?

We still have two full sheets left-over.

Thought now its up a bit hard but not impossible really you should do it with fiberglass resin but seeing you have spares i would try a lacquer say 2 pack floor stuff all you have to do is seal the fibers back in
Seeing its started to fray i reckon there's 5 years left if you don't do nothing
We get a lot of that in the tip now once it starts to fray people just replace it with acrylic

yeah, I figured that would be the case. This stuff looks like it has leaned against the fence for about 4 years already.
Thank you

Bugger, that means me up the ladder again!

Best do it now than later

got any free stuff?

Postage would be a killer

*sigh* I thought so

There must be a boat builder close by

Just thinking now its up 4 litres of clear gloss laquer would be better than nothing just check the tins and see whats best

what a sweet man you are *kiss*

There's an old boat builder down Brissie way Jaymie....

Over the last couple of months we've been losing fish, again *sigh* One here, one a few days later..... We have also pulled out a number of mussel shells, without the tenants

Last week we discussed this at length and decided some drastic action needed to be taken. We stocked up on salt, and arranged to have a couple of days at home (at the same time) and we did the Job.

Yesterday we set up the four 1000L oval tanks, with aged water and 6kg salt each, shade, with pumps or aerators.


Then today, after the kids were on the bus for school, we got stuck right into the Job.

First we opened the sump tap and drained the monster tank. When the water level was down to about 1/3 we started removing fish, and counting them. When we had about 60 fish in a tank we would change to the next one. We soon realised we should set up the quarantine tank as well, so that filled while the monster drained.

This is the monster AFTER 150 fish have been removed.


We ended up with about 280 fish (surprisingly, our population estimate was accurate!) Only about 10 Silver Perch (not very tough ), the rest are Jades and Mr Whiskers, the catfish (he is about 35cm)

During the process of double handling all these fish, we have lost 9, mostly smaller jades and silvers.

Once the monster was 99% empty, Alex scooped out all the crap and empty mussel shells that were in the bottom.


The tank got a hose out, the air pipe weights were firmly attached (finally) and 50Kg of salt was dumped in. We also added ager.


Here are some of the fish in a temporary home. This in-line pump runs hot. The pump was running overnight and the water temp in this tank was about 35oC (warm bath temp) (interestingly the fish in this tank stayed dark in colour, while the fish in the other tanks paled)


And more, in the ibc.

We started putting the fish back in the monster when it was about 1/2 full. The salt level would have been high for a while, but would have done them no harm and lots of good.


Immediately after being put back in the tank, the fish regained their dark colouring.


The pvc hides are back in again, as are the 10 or so mussels we have left out of 70 that were put in the tank