Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nice looking system there, we are thinking we might try a commercial system but would like to try a floating type for lettuce and herbs we think, what made you go grow beds with media?, I am still new so happy to hear thoughts and reasons. When we bought the property here they had a horse arena with a sand base, and we dont have any horses and nothing will grow on the sand so thought it would be a great utilisation of otherwise useless space. Because we are in Tassy we will grow Trout or Salmon or both, although because we are off the coast about 20km it can get up around 40C for a few days a year, so hope they will survive that

I'd be very surprsised if you can not keep trout year round in AP in tassie....

I went with a media type system mainly because it can handle solids. And with worms it is self cleaning.

Algae is not a huge problem

Still not painting your IBCs? The heat is on the way...

Hey Ozzie, I have the same gravel filled GBs as yours, have been wondering, will worms we able to live amongst the sharp rock edges and all that...?

abdul, they don't have a problem. My bathtubs with scoria are loaded with worms, and they tend to hang around the outlets where the fresh fish crap is.

I have scoria too, no problems. I always seem to find a worm hanging out in the root system of a plant when I pull it up. Maybe cleaning the crap off the roots?

ok thanks for that, with our domestic setup we used gravel in the bottom and hydroton in the top, seems to be working ok, I have all sorts of plants popping up as I broadcast a heap of seeds just to see what would happen, even put a row of carrots in on a seed tape and they are up but not putting on the secondary growth as yet hopefully they will get going soon, it is still cool her at night although it was up to 36C here today

I think you made a typo 36C

36 here today, water got to 24. Another 9 fish harvested before dark.

Wow. Gunna be a long summer.

Gunna be a wet summer...

Thats the general consensus here as well Rupe....alot of cyclones predicted for up north so the tail ends should deliver some rain for these parts down here.
Some Shirohie millet has been ordered (at work) and thats a summer crop that works well with the tiniest water usage so we will see....(highjack over )

Re the painting the IBCs. I have a new theory as to why some go brittle and some don't.
In my experience it seems the ones that are left full of fluid don't go brittle like the empty ones, so the theory is the constant temp variations of night and day, expansion and contraction, make them go brittle faster than UV degradation. Whadayareckon?

or the full ones stay cooler and just high temp alone damages the plastic???

Both Correct, hence my lack of speed in painting them

That and a very severe lack of spare hours in a day