Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone,

things have moved along a bit so here is a quick update.

The shadehouse/hothouse has been closed in, just got to make up some shadecloth blinds to block out direct sun on hotter days.


The growbed that my son built for his school agri project has been completed and is working well.

The extra water required to fill the bed from the sump was a problem at the start. After a few changes to the taps/flow to the other growbeds it's now working spot on.

Froggo jnr has started heaps of seeds to plant out his growbed once they are big enough. There are beans, celery, cos lettuce, spring onions and wombok.


The sp's are doing very well except one floater, it was a runt and looked like it had not grown at all since being put in the f/t. It's brothers and sisters look to be 100mm plus so I don't think it was eating.

There was no sign of any disease probs with it just a very small fish.

God bless froggo.

Hi everyone,

got my first 50 brown trout on sat from Ballarat.

They travelled ok and seemed happy enough when put into their new home, then today I found 10 died overnight. Not sure why temp was 21-22 deg C and the water readings were ok.

Chooks enjoyed the dead brown just hope I get to try some.

God bless froggo

Hi Froggo, according to a hatchery here in WA, 22c is about all they will take but no doubt someone else will have a different story, he won't actually sell his until easter weekend as it is still a bit hot to leave his controlled environment, probably find water heated up a bit in the car,

Yep, at those temps... you'd have needed mucho air and water flow Froggo... just a tad too early.... bummer

+1 for the mucho air...
The return water from sump is doing really well
as airation plus GBs draining and 2 airlines.
The water was 19.5c when I checked it about an 1 hour ago

DO is never too high via air pumps and return water that we might employ.

Hi everyone,

the tout went into my sump tank and i thought that the growbed return would be enough airation.

I have put 4 airstones in the sump now just in case. I have also put a filter bag over the return to make sure the water is really clean.

The water temps are steady at 21 deg C over night.

The remaining 40 trout are doing well now and are rising looking for food.

God bless froggo

Hi everyone,

Brown trout are doing well. Most have doubled in size to around 15cm. There seems to be a couple that have grown slower than the mean.

They have been feeding well and are very active hunting for food during the pump cycles, picking up tid bits from the water return from the growbeds

My water temp has been steady at 16 deg C for the last two weeks. The morning frosts have not had a impact on the water temp yet.

This has been good for the Sp's ,they are still feeding and moving around.

The sp's in the fishpond are very active and seem to be close to outgrowing the sp's in the AP fish tank.

God bless froggo.

Your reckon they get more food in a pond environment?

Hi OBO,

I don't feed the fish in the pond, I only give them the odd treat.

There are several hundred goldfish in the pond so the small insects are minimal. The silvers must be eating a diet of greens and the odd bugs.

There is also the posibility that they were eating the new hatched goldfish. My goldfish seem to breed twice a year, spring and autumn. The spring spawn are out of their hides and mixing in with the schools. The autumn spawn should start to venture out of the plants mid winter so I will see how many survive.

The large goldfish also eat their young. They hunted the schools and picked them off before the plants grew. You don't see them now until they are about 30-40mm.

At the moment I noticed the sp's are smashing bugs that land on the surface at sunset. They are very active compared to the sp's in the f/t. The water temps are the same.

It may be that the sp's in the pond can graze 24/7 while the fish in our AP system are fed when we decide. It's seems that this has a impact on their growth.

God bless froggo

Hi everyone,

I'm a trout killer

All my brown trout are now dead and I'm crying in my beer.

A simple mistake saw the power cut to the air pump. Dead trout resuted.

Some info for those interested.

The 40 trout had a mean weight of almost 300gms.

They were on average 23cm in length.





You live and learn.

God bless, froggo.

Bummer look at bring 2 power supplys to your ap i have the air running from the shed and the rest is on a seperate fuse in the meter box

Backup power is the key.

All my aeration runs on an inverter.

Yep, bummer Froggo..onward and upward mate... time for Silvers...

Dang man, way too many disasters seem to be happening lately

Alright then back in the pool with new fish!!!! or at least once the water warms up a bit.

I feel your pain Froggo, hard lessons learnt by both of us.