Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

G'Day Gang,

I have found that our yabbies like tomato. We have an abundance of cherry tomatoes at the moment so I threw half a dozen into the pool to see what would happen. They all disappeared so I have been throwing a handful in every time they are all gone. This happens about every second day at the moment. I am still giving them sprouted lupins and carrot plus a rib bone or 2 so they have quite a varied diet.

Does anyone have other suggestions for yabbie tucker?

Cheers
Dennis

Duckweed.
Was going to grow it as cover for them until I noticed one yabbie grabing it and eating it. A few days later and I was out of duckweed.

Be aware not to polute the water
They don't eat much

Thanks Guys,

I keep an eye on what remains and don't add more until there is nothing left. They do seem to prefer the tomatoes at the moment though.

Cheers
Dennis

Question

What is the best method for clearing roots from the grow bed?

I have just picked a couple of broccoli heads from the grow bed and the root system is massive. I tried to pull the roots out but would have destroyed whole GB. Will introducing composting worms to the GB clean the old roots up?

Cheers
Dennis

Worms will do it over time Curnow...

What media are you using... with hydroton I've found you can just sort of jiggle the plant stem and root ball up and down vigouously, shaking the hydrton away from the root ball until you can lift it out without to much problem or distrubance to the growbed...

Best time to remove roots is during a flood cycle as some of the media relaxes in the volume of water and makes life easier. I used a hand rake to tease the roots of my sweet potato and mint plants.

Beat me by that much faye float them out,

Thanks Gang

I'll have a crack on the next flood cycle.

Cheers
Dennis

G'Day Gang,

I just did a search for "High Ph" but the search engine won't accept 2 letter searches

I am having trouble keeping my ph levels down. At the moment it's up to 8. Can anyone suggest a cause and remedy for this

Cheers
Dennis

Made any changes?

No changes until today. I have set up another temporary pool and have combined the high ph ft with the new pool to try and bring down the ph a bit. I think I may need to put more yabbies of fish into the system. I am getting a gradual build up of algae so this may be part of the problem.

Cheers
Dennis

Bit of an update.

Got the crane in to pull the sweetcorn out. Check the root system!!!!



The system has expanded a bit since I posted last. I have moved all the yabbies(54) into the main pool and added some more grow beds.



Is the coulour of the duckweed normal? It seems happy enough and multiplying.



Cheers
Dennis

Looks good apart from the intex pool.

They have been known to be toxic to fish long term.

looks like azolla from a distance.