Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

only 3 more GB to clean and it will be time to assemble something again

im trying for a week turnaround for total breakdown and be back together.

no luck in finding vermiculite nearby or at all for that matter. i had hoped to try it with pebble top dressing

so its looking like river rocks as media from the nursery guy @ 63 dollars per ton which is but not compared to the bagged ones from walmart


i found something that might make a good GB but ill adress that in the wooden GB topic i added

well im making progress. i got main FT and ST emptied and pressure washed and both reset (not plumbed yet)

all pumps and supports except one cleaned and reset on their supports.

and all GB broken down and dumped. i made a nice walk path and also used the old media to sure up the FT pad

i still have to clean the 2 long shallow GB
and then build some more of them but 30 cm deep this time.

its been a lot of work but this swine haslearned a valuable lesson and wont make same mistake again. ill test anything i am not 100% positive about being safe.

Dang you work fast and hard.

Good luck with it all.

i tend to always have a sense of urgency with projects

employers always like it but im not so sure its a good trait to have though

system will be great when i get it back in operation. i do wish i had some better GB that dont waste so much space.

i also started another growing experiment with some old poly i had today. its trenches with poly liner and a 55 gallons drum of multipoo tea to ladle to it

and some dummy pitched about 15 camo 5 gallon buckets
at dump today ( i go when its closed of course ) they have tiny uniseal in lower botoow sides and half have in bottom but i would guess proper tubing size is 3/8" ?

sorta small for drain but maybe i can use as pilot hole and use 1/2" uniseals?

goal: make a swine bucket growing system of some sort hahaha

soil garden has lots of bloom on zuccinni and beans need to be picked again. something eating up my collards , so i must spray and i realize drift is going to be an issue with AP and soil so close

too many trees for either to be anywhere else

Well if it is caterpillars eating the collards, then BT is safe for AP. Look for Thuricide or dipel dust.

For the most part, I've been ignoring most of the disease and pest damage to my plants and hoping that good bugs will show up to help. Then again, I've been adding lots and lots of organic matter to my soil for the past two years and spraying almost no chemicals or chemical fertilizers. Even where pests are bad, I usually still get enough to harvest. Only exception seems to be where squirrels or deer are eating all the leaves off my sweet potato vines before they can grow any sweet potatoes.

Keep up the good work. those buckets could be all sorts of useful even if you can't figure out how to use them for AP.

i dunno what im going to do exactly with them cool camo buckets yet

i did make 2 into upside down tomatoe grow pods today. i have a regular white bucket and its doing super good. so i figured 2 more would be great and they are even the same color as the pricey one on tele

dumster diving FTW! hahahaha

Am unsure what camo buckets are Johnny. ? 20 litre white buckets. 3/8 " od holes suggests someone may have been running an airline hose into them, if the tops have circles net pot sized cut out I think I would suspect what they were used for.
First thing have you got the tops? Could cut them out to plant pot size and use a feed to do continuous flow (slow and with light media). White buckets are not light tight and would grow algae. Cheapest is black plastic over them, fancy is a spray with paint.
These would not handle crap so the FT water would have to be filtered. Had a few beers so let me know and I will think about it later

very cool sleepe, thanks mate.

the buckets are 18.92 L and are camoflage in color should be light tight except i found no tops for them at the dump site

sorta strange half have uniseal hole in bottom and other half have uniseal in lower side.

maybe was manual ebb and flow mini system. im guessing for uhh herbs

long before i ever found AP i used to do my tomato plants with manual flood and drain with one feeder bucket into 5 grow buckets using koi water and they were really nice.

yes im really wanting a small dutch pot system i can place between GB rows in GH


now this dipel aka thuricide do they make it in anything besides a dust? it rains daily here now and im not sure a dust with last more than a few hours. will it hurt the birds? i see a lot of them in the garden (after the bugs im sure now) but i build birdhouses and encourage birds to come here so i sure not want to kill them.

them chubby squirrels are another story
and as much as i hate to kill them i may have to because they are chewing the wiring on our vehicles and filling breather box on same up with acorns. lesia's mazda truck was 7 cm deep with them twice now

plus i now have no fuel guage or temp guage on my john deere because of same thing

the evil tree rats can do a lot of damage

If you must kill the little bliters ,, at least make use of them , possible fish feed I guess.They are so cutre ,, but if they are doing that amount of damage something has to be done.

yes they are cute , well at least until they exit from under your auto with a mouth full of multicolored wiring

what makes it even worse now is that my terrier knows they go under there and is far more destructive than the rodents in his attempt to rout them

they take wires and unique plugs , the russell removes fender linings , hoses , belts and anything else a rodent can hide behind

i wager if i do not intervene that said mazda truck will soon resemble nicolas cages aircraft in the lord of war movie where he left it on the desert airstrip and the natives stripped it LOL

mother nature so wants us gone from her back...

I wonder if some critter ridder spray would be of any use under the hood of the truck (would have to check and see if it would cause any damage of it's own?) The rodents are usually smart enough not to go back to a place that gave them a mouth full of the nasty taste but I'm not sure that an obsessed dog would get the hint.

However, be very careful when spraying it and don't spray it anywhere near the air intake for the HVAC system in the truck since the stuff is essentially pepper spray and we don't enjoy it either. Definitely one to spray while wearing safety goggles long sleeves/pants and gloves.

my friend says cayanne pepper and mothballs in an old stocking placed under the hood MIGHT make them stop going under there

i dont know how that will make the smell inside the vehicle though? will surely be better than that wonderful smell of burning wires though

yes the jack russell is obsessed. that is very much fact. now he even has the bulldogs as large backup when he hunts rodents. its the only scenario he actually gets to lead LOL

it is pretty funny to watch him command the big dogs.

Intense smart dogs might be great until you realize you need to give them a job and keep them busy all the time or they will make up their own war games.

Johnny

I wouldn't stick mothballs under the hood, you can make some very unpleasant inflammable devices with mothballs. Citronella oil would have been good however same problem.

ill just try the cayanne pepper and see if that helps at all.


not much progress today but i did get all GB washed out and most of the drains cleaned out and re-attached. awning shade cloth back over FT and ST refilled

i need to build a toad ladder as everyday my ST is full of them and they are working me to remove them

found .75 (3/4") river stone for $120 per yard. or the blue metal granite for $35 per loader bucket full. i dont know how much that is quantity wise but im guessing 1/4 yard on small tractor loader.

pretty cool here again after 3 days of rainy
weather.