Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hey ryan...

where did you get that blue sky from??????

it has been ages since i have seen that!!


nice setup btw...

what type of chillies??

i have thousands of birdseye chillies self sown in my yard.... bit too hot for some...

that setup with the wood is definately looking good,
What fish are you running at the moment I remember you had some trouble with food?

I've got about 20 SP fingerlings, and 2 leftover SPs about 10-15cm. They're all living comfortably off your donated food Thanks again!

Been a while since my last post, so thought I should report in

Things going OK with the system, as follows:

Fruit/veges:

My rhubarb went to flower, so after some research I cut the flower stems off. Apparently the flower stems get higher nutrient priority, and sometimes they also die after flowering. The leaves are absolutely huge, but remain green. Wonder if they're good to eat, or whether I should wait for them to turn red?

Despite previous concerns, all my strawberries are fruiting, as one would expect this time of year. Fruit taste pretty good, but I've had better.

The cherry tomato is still producing about the same amount of fruit as usual - probably about a punnet a week, which is enough for us to use. I expected higher output, but not complaining.

The gooseberry has produced a couple of dozen fruit. Perhaps more than I expected, but probably not as much as I would have thought a normal plant would provide. Berries were a little on the small size, but the wife thought they tasted good. I think all gooseberries are little orange balls of death... yuk!

The dwarf roma tomatoes have been disappointing After a couple of months, they are very small, even for a dwarf variety, and have only just started producing a few flowers, and some small fruit have started to appear.

The capsicum produced a couple of decent sized fruit some months back, but seems to have waned somewhat lately. A mass of flowers sprung up about a month ago, but the few fruit produced remained very small. Not sure if this has to do with the cold whether/shorter days of winter or not.

I planted some baby spinach some months back (same time as the dwarf tomatoes), and subsequently struggled for a couple of weeks then died. Not sure why.

Herbs:

All herbs doing pretty well.

The basil bolted some weeks ago, and I've been too busy/distracted to pull it out yet. Hopefully this weekend.

Coriander is struggling. Hasn't really grown at all, but hasn't died either.

Birdseye chilli produced a couple of hundred chillis. Lately the leaves are very pale looking. Not sure what's causing that.

Nothin much to report on the other herbs.

Fish:

All silvers are doing OK, but as expected aren't eating (or growing) much at the moment. Hopefully as it warms up they'll get back into it.

The few freshwater shrimp in the FT eventually disappeared, obviously devoured by the 2 large (150mm) silvers. Not surprised.

The few freshwater crayfish in the ST all died within a few days/weeks of each other. I thought it was natural selection, but after the last one died I'm not sure what happened there.

Strangely, neighbour down the road caught a crayfish crossing the street (full suburbia here)! I was at work, wife phoned me to ask if I wanted it. I told her certainly. Got home to find the biggest freshwater crayfish I've ever seen or caught native to this part of the world!! It now lives alone in my ST. Not sure if it will meet the same fate as the rest, I guess time will tell.

In summary, I've noticed some general yellowing of leaves and slow growth lately. I'm still adding 50-100ml of Seasol about once a week, and about 50ml of iron chelate about once month. Not sure if this is due to winter weather or what. I'll wait it out and see what happens once things warm up.

Bye for now.

Rhubarb leaves are green , wonder if I shopuld wait before eating them?????????????????????????????????
Rubarb LEAVES are very POISONOUS, eat the stems my friend ONLY the stems.

What are you nitrate levels? If you are dealing with cool weather and the fish not eating much, then your poor growth and yellowing leaves could well be nitrogen deficiency.

meant to say the stems are green

IF you have tommies you are lucky
and for me strawbs are in a few months time so also lucky.

Hi all - long time no post!

My system has been cruising along, with some highs and lows.

Highs include constant mint and parsley growth, no recent fish deaths, cucumber which I thought was doomed coming good and starting to fruit, and some nice toms recently.

Lows include corn failing, chilli dying (was powering until I pruned it - perhaps I was a bit heavy handed), lettuce growing straight up and not filling out before flowering, lack of fish (to be rectified this weekend thanks to some help from Ian with some jades) and rhubarb growth stalling.

Methinks lack of nutrients might be a problem, but I haven't got around to doing a water test to make any inroads.

After I collect the new jades I plan to do some replanting - might try planting my the moon phase this time.

In the new year I plan to complete my 2 IBC systems down the back.

On another note, I picked up a brand new in the box AquarWorld (yes AquaRWorld) 6000lph pump today for $14, and a Airtech 120 air pump http://www.newenglandkoi.com/Airtech-Ai ... p-396.html for $80 - pretty happy with myself there!

Now the question is - how should I make use of the airpump? My system has a BIG UPS that allows about 10 hours of running time in event of failure and I now have 3 spare water pumps, so I struggle to see how I can really make use of the air pump. Let me add, that I tried it out today, and it caused my FT to go berserk and sent water splashing all over that place!

If the power goes out, I have 10 hours to implement another solution (probably generator). If a pump fails, I swap it with another one.

So, do I really need the airpump, or should I look to offload it?

IMO... you can never have too much air... especially when it's hot... and/or your pump/electricity fails...

Pumping water alone during a power failure... wont save your fish like an air pump on a battery backup would...

Excuse my ignorance, but during a power failure, I'd only be pumping water in the same way as I normally do, only with a different source of power (UPS or generator). Also, the water pump uses 75W for 15 minutes every hour, whereas the air pump uses 130W and would need to be on constantly.

That is a huge air pump. You could hook that up in one location and run pipe to all the systems all around your place to provide air to lots and lots of fish tanks.

True... but pumping water around which is being depleted of oxygen... doesn't add oxygen to the system.... or at least probably not as much as is being consumed... the fish keep consuming it...

Whereas an airpump is replenishing the oxygen consumed by the fish...

Time for a brief update.

Added 20 odd JPs a couple of weeks ago. They're absolutely powering along, eating much more than the SPs ever did, and more aggressive at the food also. Can't believe how quick they grow!

Planted out some parsely, coriander, cucumber, roma tomato, lettuce and rhubarb.

For some reason, I can't grow coriander in my system. It just never gets any bigger, and eventually dies off. Any idea what I might be missing?

Hows things Ryan?