Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Fish

Finally got around to rigging my battery back up today despite having all the componants for ages.

I went for the OBO set up, I have a very large deep cycle battery trickle charged off a 4 amp charger feeding a 600 watt inverter which runs the air pump I got from the BYAP shop which I think is an Otto?????

I will check in the morning if the battery input is in balance with the draw from the pump.

Any one know the wattage of the otto air pumps????????

Any obvious problems from the electrical gurus

The Otto SA-11000 is rated at 4.5W AC...

Looks good Simo. If you have a white powdery mildew I would suggest either a foliar spray of Ecorose to keep it in check or a milk solution 1 part milk to 9 parts water over the affected leaves. That way you can keep the leaves healthy to do their job and get those rockmelons to full size with sweet flavour, especially succeptible in a humid environment.

I scored the steel for a domed roof for my greenhouse today. The uprights you can see it the picture were rusty, a pain to cut down and over engineered for my purposes so we left them and I will use patio tube to make the walls, I figure the curved roof would be the hard part any way. I should be able to make a 5m x 10 m green house.

We were allowed to take the whole lot as the owner no longer wants them and the plan was to on sell to others at a price to cover the time for removal and transportation. But they were such a pain to cut down I don't think I could sell them for enough to make it worth my while to go back again.

Picking over the bones of dead dreams,
to bring life to new ones.
The recycle of life.
Good work.

Good score!

First non-transport related fish death today

Temp 22C
pH 7.4
Amm 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10

so water seems fine

The dead fish was probably the runt of the litter but had still grown well considering he was about 20 to 30 mm when I got him from Golden ponds. Gills pink, plenty of muscle and stomach full of food.

The only thing different was the heavy rain yesterday but the other fish all seem fine, very active swimming around the bottom of the tank, maybe off their food just a little.

I have pulled a few plants this week and stirred up the gravel a little to get all the roots out but I only ever do small patches at a time and have no problems in the past, plus water readings are good so I don't think this is the problem.

Probably just one of those things, hopefully not the first of many.

Hi Simo
Wouldn't it be easier to move your AP system to the shade structures? (although not on the pocket)
Looked like it was a fairly big concern and no doubt and expensive structure to setup
You certainly have scored a good amount of steel!

Same thing happened to me last week. Just one 10cm SP lying dead on bottom of tank. No injury to it. I was checking tank all the time as I thought it may be the beginning off a major HSM. Water readings all fine.( I did scrape off a bit of muck off bottom of tank the day before) No other deaths followed. Just one off death. Lucky!

Not really sure of the reason... but it seems quite common for the odd one or two smaller Silvers to die around this time of year...

I suspect it might be related to water temps changing significantly...

You won't believe it but I had just the one go belly up a couple of weeks ago. Very similar in size and appearence to yours Simo. Weird.
Down to 19 silver perch + 6 goldfish.

I am begining to see why so many people think that Silver perch are boring, water temp is down to 15C and they are all packed together like sardines hiding under the half terracotta pots I have in the FT trying to stay warm. Now that the water is cold they eat very little and as a result grow very little and produce very little nutrient and therefore the plant growth has slowed.

On the plus side they look very healthy and move lightning fast when disturbed.

Caught one today to see how they have grown, probably one of the biggest ones.




Was this big 8 months earlier.



Not fantastic growth.

GBs looking a bit poorly as I have ripped out the summer veg and seeded with winter veg which has just sprouted.

Tomato still growing well.


Beans and more tomatoes



Celery and winter greens