Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Everything still looks good today with another small feeding. Ph was back to about 6.6 or 6.8.

Took a pic of the strawberries and will take pics of everything else booming along tomorrow so I can post several updates on growth, etc..

Did find one floating tilapia in the barrelponics system today, but no visible indication as to why... Thought it curious. The growth in that tank has been a little slower as the temps swing much more than the big system. Can hit 50s at night and 80s in the day... Still, overall the fish have seemed happy and eat well. I did measure the floater, though did not weigh it. It was 3" long, so nice gain in size since putting them in the system as 1" fingerlings 6 weeks ago.

More cukes picked today and will be harvesting green beans before the end of next week!!

CB

Your systems look great. Really nice plant growth in the barrel system, and yes cackle berries new one for me too!

Cackleberries A friend of mine calls them Bum Nuts.

Great pics CB, how are the strawberries going?

Strawberries went in the day before yesterday and I took a baseline pic (translate: "still nothing to see...")



Did have another fish death in the barrel system this morning and another this afternoon... Puzzling as I have made NO changes/additions/alterations to the system and can only attribute it to the wild temperature swings with the weird cool weather we are having. (85º days and 50-60º nights with the small volume of the barrels losing/gaining temps very rapidly...)

Here is a pic of the latest fatality in case someone with a sharper eye than mine sees anything unusual. No fins nibbled, no lost scales, no odd coloration that I can tell... Again, guessing it is the temp swings in the small system as it gets topped up from the big system and I've had no deaths in the big system since the first two days of fingerlings getting sucked into the drain.





Pics of current growth update...

More following..

The water hyacinth in the sump has been multiplying like crazy, so I really need to get on a small pond to grow this out... The quick cheap alternative may be a couple kiddie pools. I just know this is a nutrient hog and I need to get it out of my sump...

So, that has to be solved this week and the broiler pen has to be built... My three week old broilers are about read to come out of the brooder...

Busy day or two off from 'work' this week...

CB

Well, the saga with the barrelponic system continues... Apparently I haven't solved it yet... or sorted it out. Lost a couple more tilapia yesterday then found the lone surviving goldfish croaked this morning...



So, with the system now devoid of fish, I figured I'd tear it apart and start with new water, etc...

As I removed the float tank top section (that I was not using...) I noticed the water in there was pretty nasty smelling. Certainly, seemed a bit of the fish waste was being washed in there and not getting out to the GBs... Guessing there was some anaerobic activity going on there... Not sure if it was the culprit, but is a possibility.

I did take water sample readings and everything looked normal...

Ph was 6.0-6.4, Amm was in the .5 range (pump had been off over night with just air running to conserve some tank temps), ites were 0 and ates were 10-15ish.



With no fish, I decided to dump all water, rinse the tanks and refill from the big system...

As I did so I thought about how often I top off the BP system from the big system and wondered if possibly the salinity had crept up due to evaporation and continual filling from the big system. I don't have a salinity test prism, so I guess I need to get one. Still, it occurs to me that tilapia can handle brackish water and one of the goldies outlasted the tilapia... Hmmm.

One other clue is that in just the last two days I've suddenly had a number of older leaves on my beans turn yellow...



No problems with the big system, but a little puzzled over the BP. Hoping a complete water change has made a difference. Right now it has been relegated to the peeponic category.

Still, I count myself blessed. The fish deaths are just now topping 10 total in 10 months of APing...

a little more in the next post...

LOL Your red cabbage reminds me so much of the venus fly trap in Little shop of Horrors.

"Feed Me"...

Have not had time to build a small hyacinth pond and this stuff is growing like crazy stealing nutes from my veges, so I had to come up with a simple short term solution...



The boys are doing the peeponics in there, too... I did add a bit of the tainted water from the raft tank to each of these 'ponds'... They are fishless, so I figure I can dump the gunk in there and let the hyacinth benefit...

Lots of other stuff to do today, but managed to get a little more done on the grow out pen for the broilers... We have 45 and they are getting too big for the brooder, so I have to get them moved by this weekend.



Not enough hours in the day, but God is good!

CB

Yeah... Somewhere I edited a small copy of that to use as an avatar... Guess I need to find that...

CB

Sorry to hear about your fish.

I hope you can figure it out and let us know.

Yeah, hope to solve it... Back when I was just starting to read on here and get interested, I had visions of the horror of killing a ton of fish in one day... Guess anything is possible, but there have been far fewer losses than I originally anticipated...

The neighbor across the street raises cows. I figure it will take a LOT of fish to equal the loss of one cow which does occasionally happen.

CB

Well, the out-la... er, in-laws were in town today. Both are big gardeners and they had seen my big system before there was any gravel in it and were very skeptical... Well, skeptics no more! Some veges, namely green beans and cukes have been starting to come in, so we did not pick the last two days to be sure there was bounty for them to gaze/graze upon. Graze they did.

We picked a couple baskets of beans, four nice cukes and a basket of lettuce.

Here's a pic of the haul:



Also, thought I'd take a quick snap or two of the strawberry plants. A week ago last night we put them in the NFT system with zero leaves and not looking good. This is the one week pic with numerous leaves and new roots beginning to exit each net pot!!





Tank temps around 77º and the fish are feeding like crazy. Expecting to see some real growth in the coming months!

CB

I think I am going to be blown away by the productivity of this system this first season!!

Had a neighbor over who trades tools, help and knowledge. I told him he could pick this evening and we pulled another basket of beans, six huge cukes and a basket of lettuce while leaving the plants in such a condition that my mom can pick tomorrow!

Really. I knew/know this is a good thing, but still, I'm tempted to try to record everything we get this year from this "small" (footprint size) garden/system. I continue to be amazed!

CB

I for one would really appreciate detailed records.