Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Sorry for not responding earlier. I have only just managed to look at the forum.
My 6 year old daughter broke her arm very badly on friday night and 2 operations later things seem to be getting back on track.

Quachy, thanks for the info and photo's, I will cut them back tomorrow and see what happens. I have also followed Rupes idea and increased the pumping the 30 on 30 off.
It seems to have helped heaps through these 40+ days we have been having.
The beetroot have picked up and the capsicum seems to be doing better.
I think I will try adding some ecorose to help buffer PH and also add some potasium.
See how that goes.

Sorry to hear about your daughter. Hope she is recovering well.

Daugther at home and recovering well.
Hopefully no more problems.

Used some of the nice leaves from the basil tonight in a Thai Chicken Fried rice.
Tastes very good, hope there isn't any nasty diseases on them.
They are looking much better today when I had a look.
I will still prune them on the weekend. My chocolate capsicum plant is getting some capsicums but the first 2 were really small and taste awful. I hope the next ones are better. Try and get some more photo's on the weekend.

Hello all it's been a long time since an update and today at lunchtime I went home to
discover the float switch on the sump pump didn't work and the fish were swimming
around in about 100mm of water.
Fixed the problem with the float switch which was a simple floating raft that managed to
get stuck ontop of the float. While the water was low I moved some of the silvers that
had made there way into the koi tank. Also moved some more of the larger ones out
of the sump into the main tank. Hopefully this way the smaller ones can get more food.

Once again it's been a long time since my last update.
I have good news I have finally purchased and setup 2 BYAP grow beds on my system.
I am now running 2000 ltrs of fish tank with 1000ltrs of grow beds. Currently stilll using
the bath as a sump but will be replaceing this with another IBC for a sump.

Here are the pictures.

Now that the new grow beds are in place I can plant more stuff.

Tonight I planted some Baby Bunting Broccoli, Honey Snap Peas and some iceberg
lettuce. Lets see how they go. There are lots on Nitrates to be used up.

I really hope they work for you Whisper - the heat has been killing my broccolini and pea seedlings - grrrrrrr

What is your weather like CD? Here in Texas (according to the charts, you are supposed to plant peas early early spring). They never flower for me as it gets really hot really fast. Last year I decided to plant them late fall, and it worked a charm. I've been picking handfulls of peas daily for a couple weeks now. I put some more peas in last full moon, but don't expect them to produce. The fall peas did really well all through winter (we had some bad cold snaps here that killed my citrus and other plants, but peas did fine). They grew very slow, but flowered bunches and are producing more then I expected. So for me at least, peas will pretty much get the whole garden through the winter. I love raw peas right out of the garden - in fact, none of them even make it to the house, they get eaten in the garden!

Thanks CD, I am hoping that the really hot weather has gone and I have also
planted them in the most shaded part of the growbed.
Last year I had no luck with the peas so we will see how they go this time.
Hopefully get some good Broccoli this year as well.

I still have some more room and not to sure what else to plant yet.
Will definately sort that out very soon.

I can not believe how good these BYAP beds seem to be.
I have only had them in for a few weeks and already have better growth with my
new seedling than I have ever had before.
Hopefully things will keep going great guns from now on.

Silver Perch and Koi going really well and growing fast.

Lettuce, Peas and Brocolli going really well. Parsley a bit slow but OK.

Glad to see things going well for you Whisper! Really neat job you've done.

Hi Whisper, I dont seem to be having much joy with my parsely either. No growth and seem to be continuously picking up dead bits. Otherwise, I agree, BYAP beds are great.

I will try and get some more pics this weekend to show the growth.

Finally took some photo's. Things going well.

Hi guys,
Been ages since I have posted.
Everything going really well, Silvers not eating or growing with the cold weather.
Koi still eating well.
Broccoli neally ready to eat and been eating the outer leaves off the lettuce.
Carrot seeds growing like crazy and spinach starting to come good.
Try to put some more photo's up soon.