Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm continuing to act under the assumption that koi will eat bugs. The latest addition is a light hanging over the pond, with a small fan underneath it; attached to the fan blades are lengths of fairly heavy insulated copper wire. Rigged to a light-activated timer so that it goes on at night. The light attracts bugs, which the spinning wires knock into the pond. Free protein! Just got it going last night; seems to be working, though it's not attracting as many bugs as I'd thought it would. And the fish are a bit spooked by the unaccustomed light at night, so they cower under the rocks I've got for them to hide under, but I figure they'll get used to it. BTW, it's not my idea - I've seen systems like this for sale (at a price I didn't want to pay; I built mine out of scrap lumber and an old fan and light fixture I had laying around. So the cost of a few nuts and bolts and a cfl bulb).

You can plant Sunflowers as a trap crop. They do two things.

1. The aphids go to it instead of the plants you want to keep.
2. Due to the aphids being in one place, the Ladybugs come in droves.

I have a spreadsheet that I can send that I did a lot of research on. For instance... If you plant basil around your tomatos it makes them grow faster and provide more taste...

Let me know,
Thefishingangler

First AP fruits. Not much so far, but a lot more on the way!

Hey BG - I'm curious about how your light/fan bug system looks. Do you think you can post a picture of it?

nax, it looks like what it is, a jury-rigged system built from spare parts, so not exactly attractive, but sure, I'll snap a pic and let you judge for yourself....

I have bug zappers hanging over my fish tanks. Of course I grow Channel Catfish which are kinda partial to eating after dark I have the zappers on a timer that turns on at dusk and off 4 or 6 hours later depending on the tank and if I'm finding too many bug parts left over. The small catfish have trouble eating big beetles.

I would suggest catfish as a better choice for eating type fish over tilapia provided you don't have a problem eating catfish (I know some people do because of allergies or religion.) Channel catfish will grow bigger/faster than mixed gender tilapia in a non heated system and they can survive freezing weather (unless you are talking about really tiny fingerlings/fry and 32 degree F water for weeks on end.) My outdoor system here in central FL did get down to a freezing water temperature over winter and more than half of the really tiny fingerlings I had in there survived. The tilapia all died when the water got down to 50 F. My lesson learned from that was don't get super tiny catfish fingerlings for the unprotected quarantine system on Christmas Eve. No real lesson learned on the tilapia, I knew I didn't have the set up to keep many of them alive over winter so I gave away as many as I could before the really cold weather hit.

Thanx TC. Yeah, I'm thinking catfish are the way to go. It'll be a while before I get the new pond dug, though - way too hot for that kind of work this time of year.

LOL yea, hot this time of year.

What am I thinking when I plan to put in another 300 gallons worth of fish tank and need to dig it in at least 2/3rd of the way into the ground.

OK, here's a shot of my homemade bug whacker. Like I said, not exactly a work of art, but it works....

Hey BG... I've seen works of art that aren't up to that standard... and probably cost a 1000 times more...

Thanks for the shot BG.

+1


Not to mention that your masterpiece if functional art.

I saw something similar last time I was in Asia. They used a fan like you did, minus the blades, and attached some thin rags on it to keep flies off of the produce at the outdoor market.

Minor annoyances. One of my growbeds sprung a leak - it looks like a manufacturing defect - which has proven difficult to repair, because nothing seems to stick to the slick plastic permanently. Pond liner tape worked for a couple of days, then leaked just as much as before; latest try is with liquid electrical "tape", really just a plastic type of substance that goes on liquid and then dries, backed up by moisture-proof electrical tape. Seems to be working so far.... If it doesn't work I'll try epoxy. Hardest part of the fix is lifting and propping up the 400-lb. growbed enough to get to the underside where the leak is, since I don't want to dig out the whole thing in the middle of the growing season.

But even more annoying is a possum (I think) that's eating my heirloom tomatoes just before they are ripe - just starting to blush. If that little bastard knew how long I've been waiting for those tomatoes... he'd probably do it anyway, but still. He ignores the Early Girls and Romas, of which I have many more, and goes for the big beefsteaks. Any ideas on how to dissuade him? I guess I need a dog; the cats aren't defending their territory.

I think it's a possum, anyway. I see them in the back yard fairly often, and I figure if it was a raccoon I'd be losing fish as well, which so far I haven't.

You need fish that will eat racoons.

I dont know how effective it is, but I have seen people make up garlic sprays to deter animals.

Exactly! or maybe an alligator or two.... keep the cats indoors at that point.

So the leaks in my growbeds continued to defy all my attempts to seal them, and got worse, until finally I was forced to replace the containers. To back up a bit, I was using cheap plastic storage tubs for growbeds, probably not a good idea but it seemed like it at the time. They are apparently not designed to hold water, and for the last couple of weeks I've been topping up the system with at least 20 gallons a day (as a side note, I've been using potassium metabisulphite as a dechlorinator/dechloraminator, and have not had any apparent adverse reactions from the fish; they seem fine). Anyway, as I said the leaks did not fix themselves and kept getting worse, so finally I took my Sunday to go get some stock tanks from the tractor supply store and switch the plastic tubs for them. I got two 40 gallon tanks, which turned out to be a bit smaller than the tubs, and shaped differently, oval instead of rectangular and slightly shorter and wider, but they sort of fit on the same platform so I squeezed them in. Uprooted the plants - very large tomato plants, cucumber vines, melons, basil, peppers - and shoveled the gravel into a wheelbarrow, then switched the growbed tanks, and shoveled the gravel into the new beds. Gave me a chance to check on my worm population, and I was gratified to see quite a few; I'd started with only 5 or 6 in each bed, too lazy to catch more, and I saw more than that during the gravel-shoveling, so I figure they're happy and multiplying.

I replanted the plants as well as possible; of course, they'd lost a lot of roots. There was no way to get all the roots when I was digging them up, and digging out the gravel was an exercise in breaking up masses of roots. So I was worried about them. The cucumber especially wilted very severely. They perked up over night, but during the heat of the day they wilted badly again (needless to say, it is hot here). But each day they are wilting less, undoubtedly growing new roots. Probably an exercise in futility for the large plants, as they will most likely stop producing for the season regardless, but the smaller tomatoes I'd planted the week before came through just fine, no wilting at all, and I figure the larger ones are good for placeholders/water filtration purposes until the smaller ones take over.

Bottom line, it was a huge pain in the ass, being that I did it on one of the hottest days of the year, but I'm not losing water anymore, except for evaporation, and things are set up for the fall season.