Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Abdul go to www.backyardfarming.com.au . We are all there in the dirt

I love the chicken they have in the bar at the top

yeh cute chickens but did you login to give us some input into your yard

Have made a user, will put up a thread there with a video of the dirt growth tomm

good fella Abdul.We like to see what you got in your yard also

Haven't put up the dirt garden yet :/ but will do soon, tomorrow as a matter of fact!

Will give you a spoiler to keep the interest, its a container garden, quite large. Not sure about all the plants in there but the list includes sweet corn, bougenvilla, lemon, orchids, mint, basil, parsely, oregano, tomatoes, a bonsai and various money plants.

The AP goes fine, showed it off last night, very carefully and from arms distance, to family that came over.

Today these guests that are crashing at my house were upstairs and turned off the switch to the extension that powers the system, no idea how long it spent that way. Two GBs were almost fully flooded and one was dry, the one with the tomato seedlins in it, which had all drooped down. What was very interesting though was how tall and proud they stood again after just a couple of flood and drain cycles. Plants seem fine otherwise, gave the mint a major trim, chili still looked stalled, tomatoes and basil doing happily. Fish seemed fine, got one big meal for the day. Can see the SLO pipe getting brown with what I guess is poo sediment, abdolutely MUST get off my bum and remake the SLO and put in the new GB.

Fed the crayfish some fresh earthworms, there are a reasonable amount in the dirt potter I've been cultivating for worms but not many big ones, wonder what I'm doing wrong there.

Spent a while watching the bigger crayfish chasing the smaller one around! I think hes about twice the little ones size already and it was an insane looking battle. Very hungry they were I guess to I chucked in a bit of the turtle food into their tank, that and finding the other worms around the tank calmed them down.

I think its been a while since I changed any water, but will do that, a clean up and a resalting when I put in the new GB. Will be interesting to see what sort of and how much goop there is at the bottom of the current GBs. This new GB will herald loads of new chili and tomato seedlings as well. Will get basil, oregano and parsely once those seedlings are ready.

One option is to simply place your pots into the new growbed and add gravel around them. Another is to pull them out and plant them into the new bed as if they were much small plants. Transplanting in AP is so darned easy!

Woooohhhoooooo

Its done!

The new GB is in place, plants have been transplanted into it, chillis have been removed. New plants not added, will do that in the day tomm.

Sadly ran a little short on rock, will have to get another bag of it and have it crushed tomm to do the top one inch on one side, its a little tilted so is higher on one side.

The three old GBs have been emptied. Cleaned the filters in the ST as well, my God they were filthy. Water became a little cloudy once I did that, then once the new rock all got added it became a whole lot more cloudyWill tie a sock to the GB outlet in the morning, that ought to speed up the clearing process!

Did a litmus test again on the water today, and the red strip turned blue! Quite happy to see a change at last, hopefully the pH isn't above 8, considering how long it took the strip to change and how light the blue was it shouldn't be.

Fish and crayfish still all fine.

Din't have time to switch the SLO, spent all afternoon and evening, almost 5ish hours spent changing up the GB.

Root systems on the plants were all quite impressive, hpefully they will flourish in the new bed.

With the new rocks will add one of the old GBs as well to increase filtration.

Took the bananas out of the ST, my God they stank! it was horrid! Squeezed them a bit into the ST to try and get some potassium in the system, then buried their putridness into the dirt planter I'm using to grow worms.

Ah must also go tomm and get the chelated iron and some potassium bicarbonate hopefully, will be adding shell grit tomm too, but not much so that the pH doesn't spike.

Too dark now but will put up a video of the new setup tomm evening, put an inspection pipe into the new GB too.

Went, and put on the sock, couldn't bear to wait :/

Pardon the pun, but quite 'hooked' I am to the fish

Water already looks a little clearer.

Have decided that will not get any more river rock, it'll be expensive, heavy and time consuming in crushing.

WIll instead give the top a one to two inch layer of broken play pots, there are a bunch of clay planters on the roof will use those, they're not broken yet but what shouldn't take long.

Will also fill up one of the old GBs completely with the clay and run that on the system to add more growing space and filtration

It will be interesting to see the comparison in between the plants growing largely in river rock and those growing in broken shards of clay pots. They'll be on the same system so won't be quite a proper experiment, as the river rock may be adding trace minerals, have some rock dust am going to add to it as well from the rocks being crushed, that should definately have trace minerals. Fertile river water is made from these rocks eroding ainnit?

ok so may have found a line on some seaweed extract nut its only available in a 2 liter bottle, no way I get through all of that before it expires, is Grow more Seaweeed extract, can anyone tell me how long it will keep for?

Also, more importantly, picked up some chelated iron and chelated potassium, the iron is iron sulphate and the potassium is potash, are these AP friendly? am pretty sure have read mention of them somehwere on the forum but can't remember what it was :/ can someone please enlighten me...?

Chelated iron is fine but no clue on the potassium. Iron is only needed if your ph is high and other nutrients should be available from the fish, crayfish poop.
Good work on the new growbed

where's the pictures of the new GB's
Regards
Matt

Ah so, the sulphate of iron is safe to add yes?

The Sulphate of Potash I am unsure about, am wanting to add seaweed extract for the potassium in any case.

Also read about a seaweed extract with iron, the link is here:http://www.vitax.co.uk/index.php/area/home-garden/plant-feeding/vitax-seaweed-and-sequestered-iron/

Is this AP friendly too? Seems convinient, just add that, and some shell grit for calcium and pH buffering and you're good! They have agents here in Karachi, think I might be able to score some.

The sulphates I got are from the same company and are on the website if anyone is interested

But if you have to add these fertilizers then AP isn't truely organic is it?

Anyhew, I apologize for being late with this visual, but its a long one so enjoy, and do let me know what you thought. Cheers you guys :]

Abdul
great effort with a DIY system, I think your highlighting one point, to anyone who can't understand the concept of growing without soil should look at the plants growing in your beds, the bigger the rocks or pieces of clay, the better the water flow, do you have lots of worms & bacteria also?

I'm about to help out a my eldest kids school with a DIY system, should be fun!

I hope I have lots of bacteria ;] No worms though, going to add some today hopefully, will feed them crayfish some worms as well.

Big rocks are good for flow, but the plants need the smaller ones to hang onto and grow in easily and they also keep from the sunlight from getting deep into the bed. All a complex interwoven tapestry it is...