Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I went with the clay balls as suggested for the second GB. All looking good and water is clearing. two more grow beds in place today now just to plumb and get the media. Have also planted some vegies

Something likes my colliflower more than me any idea's? The silverbeat & Spring Onions doing well right next door :think

I added these 10 tandanus catfish a week ago and so far all going well. The water has cleared up and I tested it today for the first time PH 7.4 & Ammonia 0. Looking at putting in some trout over next few days. Vegies also doing well

Added 30 rainbow trout on Sunday - Haven't seen any of them but when I fed them today we had some splashing so I assume all OK. I can see a catfish or two crusing the edges or the pipework but that is about all. Water is still not very clear, I can only just see the white pipes on the bottom. Have a number of pine needles falling into the system so that could be the problem.
Water testing is PH 7.0 and Amm 0.0 so looking OK.

A week or so since last update and things are going along OK (I think). Trout seem to be eating OK, not sure if over or underfeeding? Tested the water this morning and got the following;
Temp - 8.2degrees
PH - 7
Nitrite - .3mg/l
Ammonia - 0

Today I got 25 Freshwater Mussels (Velesunio ambiguus) placed 15 in the FT not sure where to put the other 10 (Sump or FT). Have read the thread on mussels but it seems to have been dormant for a while now. Looking at adding a Yabbie tank in coming weeks so might put the other 10 in there?

Haven't seen the catfish for a while, hope they are OK. Water is still not clearing up hope the mussels can asssit there.

I put my final GB on line today (for now, from what I have read it seems like everyone just keeps expanding once system is up & working). That means 3 x 200litre GB's (bath tubs) & 1 x 500litre GB. Plant grow seems good and everything lloks healthy. Fish are eating, I can only see them when they feed. Haven't seen catfish for a while now??

Still not happy with water it doesn't seem to be clearing up, if anything it's getting worse! Have to work next couple of days so will leave it and see what happens. Hopefully this is normal for a new system?

The water is clearing up and I can see the bottom again.

From what I can see the fish are feeding well (flurry of action when I chuck in food) and plant grow is good.

Sadly I think the catfish have been consumed by the trout

Ouch, bugger about the catfish, but hey, thats trout for you, they just can't be trusted with other fish...

I wonder if the mussels were part of the reason that things cleared up for you, I seem to remember Nocky having good success with the mussels clearing his water.

The catfish are more active at night. Try a few pellets at night and a very dull torch to see if they appear.

I had a look and sighted 1 catfish tonight, so maybe they are Ok and just hiding

I had to do some repairs on the air mainfold in the FT today, an airstone had come out of the 20mm pipe and all air was coming out of that hole as it was path of least resistance. Took the opportunity to try and take some photo's of the trout and the vegies.

Here are some of the fish. The water is clearer than I thought and that it looks. Although there are quite easy to see, I found it quite hard to get a good photo. I was surprised with the size, they are a lot bigger than when I put them in 4 weeks ago. There are a few obviously larger than the others but I wouldn't be able to guess an average size at this stage. Not sure if I am over/under feeding, they seem to be happy to eat whenever I throw pellets in for them. So far so good.
Keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have any disasters.

Well everything seems to be going well. The fish are happy and the plants are growing. Looking at expanding, prossibly add some grow channels (NFT) and another FT + additional GB's. Was thinking about Yabbies but no sure after reading issues on oher threads. Can you get Maron in Victoria and would they grow successfully? A few pics of growth for you below. Also have lost Nitrite test color chart are these online or does someone have a Tetra one as a PDF?

Had my first AP cos lettuce in my lunch today, very nice. Fish off food yesterday so did a water test and PH is down to 6. Would this be the reason and ny suggestions out there on the best way to get it back up if needed. I am also still looking for a Nitrite color chart as I have lost mine Below is a table of my test results as you can see PH has dropped over the last month. Probably the pine needles that land in the water!

Date Temp PH Nitrite Ammonia Nitrate
18-May 10.2 7 0.3 0 -
20-May 8.2 7 0.3 0 -
22-May 6.8 6.5 0.3 0.25 -
25-May 10.5 7 0.3 0 -
27-May 12.2 7 0.3 0 -
30-May 13.2 7 0.3 0 -
2-Jun 10.9 7 0.2 0 -
3-Jun 9.6 7 0.2 0 -
4-Jun 9.1 7 0.3 0.25 -
7-Jun 9.6 7 0.2 0 -
9-Jun 8.8 7 0.2 0 -
12-Jun 9.4 7 0.2 0 15
15-Jun 8 7 0.2 0 10
19-Jun 9.9 7 yellow 0 10
22-Jun 6.8 7 yellow 0 20
27-Jun 8.3 7 yellow 0 20
2-Jul 7.7 6.5 orange 0 20
7-Jul 6.9 6 Dark O/R 0 10

I had success with mussels in the bathtub system and aquarium inside, I have 4 in a 50lt aquarium and that runs filterless and is crystal clear, had 50+ in a 2000lt tank with Pygmy Perch and it cleared up after a month, not sure if the mussels did that or nature, they will filter 20-40lts of water a day each and a very good filters, the 200lt bathtub has around 50 mussels in it now and it is always crystal clear, I had 100 in the yabbie tank and soon found floating shells with holes in them so removed them to the BT, it didn't take yabbies long to eat 50, so would advise against putting them with yabbies, they need a host fish to breed and when I emptied the 2000lt tank I found a couple of mussels much smaller than when they went in, many more could have gone down the siphon house, so with that I would suggest throw hem in the fish tank