Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

thanks! Wooden stakes, 1" poly and zip tied. Should hold up in most winds during summer and easy to take off during winter. Looking at doing a more permanent structure, like a hot hot/shade house type thingy. Will see how the planning goes.

The water is clearing up. Can see about 1/3 of the way down now which is a hell of a lot better than 2-3 inches down. The silvers are feeding great guns and seem to really love their new home (until they end up on my plate ). The 3" murrays surfaced today. They seem to be used to me now which is good. They seem to swim to the pellets as if they are going to hit them, then nudge and leave them. Is this normal? I have increased the feed to the silvers to 3-4 tablespoons through the day. The cod, I'm leaving at about 2 tbsp until I can see them actually eat the food. These guys have hides in the tank, but seems like some don't mind swimming around which is good. I am feeding them 2mm barra pellets, maybe these are too big? I find that hard to believe as their mouths are huge. I have some fingerling crumble I got from Glenwaters for the 50 cod fingerlings, maybe I should feed them that stuff for awhile? I think I'll stop feeding the cod for a couple of days and then try again. If still just nudging, then I'll switch feed until they get a bit bigger.

The 50 1-2" cod seem to be feeding, but hard to tell as they just sit there while I'm around. Wouldn't mind giving Jades a go with the water temp stable at 27deg. Should be able to fatten fingerlings up to survive over the winter with these temps. Maybe next year.

Can't wait for more silver fingerling to be available and catfish! Monya, when will you have some stock? You thinking of doing another trip to Dean this year with fingerling stock?

Quachy

Air pump arrived today so hooked it up with 2 50mm round air stones for each fish tank. water boiling beautifully. The water has cleared up a fair bit but still some way to go before I can see the bottom. Should be good by end of the week I think. I have also put a timer on the water pump. Now it will run during the day and turn off at 10pm, back on at 6am. With the air stones, fish should be fine during the evening and I'm guessing the growbeds and plants will be fine also as the gravel should stay pretty moist (or partly full, pending on the cycle). I'm pretty sure FF switches his pumps off at night (?) and his system keeps on keeping on.

The cod still don't seem to be taking anything, they are friendly buggers though. I checked the water temp, dropped in the thermometer and they went straight to it for some reason, so did it a couple of times same result. Dipped the tip into some crumble dropped in tank, same result, but no visible eating. Dipped my fingers in and what do you know, they went straight to the fingers for a bit of a smell/peek I think, but still won't take any food. Hopefully, if they are not eating, then the food is making its way out of the SLO (I feed close to the outlet so that uneaten food gets sucked up), better yet, they are eating but further down in the tank.

SIlvers going great guns! Might be a bit on a silver convert if they keep going this way!

Quachy

Just realised you are in Bacchus Marsh...Just down the road from us.

Yeah not far at all! Just checked out your wood oven site, very interesting!

After a bit of mucking about with some chopped up worms, worm juice and 2mm barra feed, the cod are finally feeding!!!!!

They are now visibly feeding, not as aggressive as silvers, but some of them do hit it pretty hard. I don't use any worms and worm juice now as they seem to be eating the pellets ok. Will keep feeding at 2 tbl spoons a day and then up the feed in a week or so.

Silvers are going off in the warm water. I am now mixing the feed 2mm and 4mm and am hoping that they will be all on the 4mm in a couple of weeks. There are some that are definitely on the 4mm at close to 7-8" long, but there are a few at 5-6" long that I don't think are on to the 4mm just yet. Hoping that 2 wks at 25c+ water temp will get some size into them!

Water tests are:
pH - 7.4
Amm - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 40

Got heaps of seeds in and hoping they will germinate by the end of next week. Will also buy some advanced seedlings this weekend and shove them in.

The 50 small cod fingerlings seem to be feeding, but I am finding it hard to judge the feed rate. Going at about 1/2 tsp eat feed twice a day, but I'm thinking that maybe too much so will go with 1/2 tsp a day for a week to see how it goes.

Bring on the aquaponics!!!! It's great to see when things just finally work!

Quachy

All 6 grow beds now on line. Filled the last one up with 20mm drainage and set the siphon up using 25mm poly pipe as that was what i had laying around. It doesn't drain as fast, but does drain. Planted out heaps of seedlings tonight, silverbeet, watermelon, basil, thyme, lettuce and more lettuce. Also got 2 varieties of grapes which I am keen to try in the aquaponics system. I have had one of the bigger murray's isolated in a tank in my small system and have been feeding it just worms to look at growth rate and health. Checked on it tonight and it has one big belly! Too dark for a photo but will do so hopefully tomorrow.

some pics

Have 2 kiwi fruit plants (male and female) potted with gravel and sitting in the ap system. They have gone off with new growth. Once work has finished up for the year, I will put these guys into 1/2 olive barrels and plumb them up. They will be used as shade over the top of the fish tanks. I am planning to grow them on an arbour over the tanks.

I have also got some grape vines, one green one red. The green one will be for eating and the red for drying and eating. Also plan to grow these guys in 1/2 barrels and grow them over some cheap wire arbours from bunnings.

Has anyone tried these plants? I would like to run a continuous flow, constant height system for kiwis and grapes in the barrels but am worried that the roots will rot due to no dry time.

Any thoughts?

Other than that, the system is ticking along beautifully, the silvers are growing and feeding well, the cod seem to be feeding really well (will have to grade the bigger ones soon).

Photos to come asap. Exam marking and report writing almost done so more time soon!

Quachy

those cod look very nice!

silvers available mid January.

My silvers at 80 - 100mm are now on to 4mm feed, so yours should be able to handle it I reckon.

fat bellies on the cod- must be eating something- either their mates or the pellets

hah yeah! Some of the cod don't seem to be feeding as their bellies are very small, others have huge bellies. I will try to net some and take some more photos. so far, they seem to be very easy to look after and are hardy! no losses yet. system hasn't been salted either and I will try to run it unsalted for as long as possible (love my strawberries and so do the boys!).

I'll start using 4mm exclusively for the silvers and 2mm 4mm mix for the cod for another couple of weeks.

Quachy

looking thru pics on card... found this one... cod that were born here, we harvested from the pond at the end of last summer to move to a different pond. TYhis is what you are aiming for Quachy, these beauties were between 200 and 300 grams and in top nick. The biggest we got was around 800 grams and he ended up as dinner

Nice growbeds look really heavy though, BTY really nice pizza ovens, they look really cool!!! Something you don't see overhere especially as much as we love pizza!

Monya, they look awesome! I'm going to need to grade mine in the next couple of weeks!

BatonRouge Bill, yeah the gbs are pretty heavy. The white gravel is a bit small, but got them for free and they are really heavy, nice to work in though. When/if they clog up (i'm guessing 2-3 yrs time) I will change them over to scoria with a top dress of clay balls (need to save the $$$ for the clay balls though).

BTW, they are'nt pizza ovens, just good old fashioned brick bbqs. The pizza oven will go next to the bbqs and I am starting the mud brick making process now. I have some trial bricks drying at the moment. They are looking really good, but will wait another week and then give them a high pressure spray (non-scientific erosion test) to see how they hold up to the wet. Looks like they should be fine, but will test to be sure and then start the process.

Quachy