Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Time for a bit of an update. To remind myself later what I have done and inform all of you out there of the progress on the system.

I installed a heating coil. Which I turn on during the day. It runs about 4L/min through 80 metres of 19 mm poly. It seems to add about 2oC to the temperature of the tank. Compared to without it, so doesn't make that much difference but I guess it helps.

Tank temperatures are about 15 - 20 at the moment and fish have been eating alot less. My digital thermometer has given up the ghost, can anyone recommend one that works.

Went down to the river weir yesterday and managed to catch 133 silver perch fingerlings that were stuck at the bottom using nothing more then a landing net. I added them to the green tank. All seemed to have lived so far. That brings the fish total up to 433 silver perch fingerlings and 5 large silver perch (25cm-ish) all in only 2000 L water. Anyone see any problem with that?

Tests still seem to be alright 0 (NH3),0 (NO2),15 (N03). pH is still high 8.2 , I have been adding 5ml conc HCl acid every morning to try and bring it down into the 7's, I am a bit worried that the toxic level for NH3 is very low at that ph and temp.

Plants are still doing well. Picking more tomatoes then we need. plus basil, lettuce, capsicum, pak choy and a pineapple.

In other news, I have started plans for the big system...

1. Bought a 6 port 40mm spider valve from Fresh by Nature (Their cheap and everyone needs one)
2. Bought 14 IBC's from Landmark. They had round up in them should clean out alright. I have to wait for 13 of them to arrive. Only $50 each
3. Bought plumbing gear to match OBO commercial's system $1000

Still need a large tank to bury in the ground. Not sure what size or where I should get it from I was thinking 5000L squat rainwater tank, that will be about $1000 as well.

That is about all for the moment. Need to have a think about how to arrange everything in the space, lots of work to do in the next couple of months. But I promise to take photo's and let you all know how it goes.

cheers

Nothing like a long weekend for a bit of work on th aquaponics. Have been collecting all the bits that I need for an expansion. I started putting it all together today. Check out the pictures

Bit worried about what was in the tanks but I have a really good way to clean them out.

Finally I started to dig the hole. Found a pipe in the first 3 scoops that I probably should have moved, trenched that our of the way and continued digging until a leak in the hydraulic hose means some repair work tomorrow before I finish the hole off. The tractor is nearly sixty years old!! More updates to come

The very busy
Farmer Luke

Now that's just cheating
Awesome growth, except the lonely metal strawberry tower.

Hi Privatteer,

Planning to get around to the lonely metal strawberry tower. I am salting the water a fair bit cause my 430 fish are still to jammed up in 2000L once the big tank is in and everything settles down. With more filtration, then it will be strawberry time again. Strawberries hate the salt.

I think that they might be yellow belly and not silvers. I have lost 6 of them since they went in.

More success today. The big tank is in the ground and nearly full of water. Moved about 3 ton of sand to put around the tank. All of it double shoveled; that has taken a couple of afternoons work. Really was quite a big hole.

I have put 39 of the little silvers in their as the test fish. I will put the rest in on the weekend when I cut the top off and move in the big pump and swap the grow beds over.

The last 5 big silvers might make dinner when they come out of the tank.

Just a quick note regards to the ibc. Is $50 each the standard price or mates rates? What was delivery? Isn't roundup quite toxic?

IBC's new cost about $350.

The roundup ibc's are returned to the point of purchase (Landmark) after use for a refund. These depots can not return them to the suppliers (of the IBC) cost effectively and in some case at all, mainly because of the problems of contamination and transportation. As far as I know.

If you see a pile of IBC's somewhere go in and ask them for some at $50, I imagine you will get them. They will just want to get rid of them. It cost me $157 to transport them home. I know a local carrier and he did it for the fuel cost. (Nearly 400km to my door). You could get two in a one tonne ute. They are not very heavy.

Roundup is toxic correct, but it is not residual. I run about 100,000 litres of water (some of them get a million litres) through each of them( see the photo with the black pipe in the ibc) and consider them to be clean. Algae starts to grow.

If you are worried about Roundup consider roundup ready wheat/corn/soybeans etc, are sprayed in the field and you eat that stuff.

They are far and away the cheapest growbeds that I could find.

Not worried about roundup as a matter of consumption but worried about roundup and it's affects on the fish.

You are 100% on the ibc being a cheap source of growbeds. Especially at 50 each. Sadly many enterprising people in Melbourne sell secondhand ibc at about 150 each. Cheapest I have found in Melbourne is 100.

I imagine that much water through an IBC will clean it out of roundup/glyphosate. Just be careful with wetting agent though, I lost all my fish a couple of years ago when I didn't clean out my firefighter tank well enough (had wetter in it to help fight fire).

Good looking system though, keep it up.

Cheers,
Nova

You think it looks good now nova you just wait.

I don't want to have to buy a leafy vegetable again. Or a tomato, melon, cucumber, squash etc. I will make this thing as big as it needs to be, so that I don't have to put up with poor quality, over sprayed, tasteless, tough unhealthy food, that is overpriced, transported, ripened in a gas chamber, put in cold storage and eaten out of season, grown using fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides as a mono culture. miles from where it is eaten. All before it goes to complete waste as it is allowed to rot in the fridge. So that some farmer can grow broke growing it and some corporation can make a profit, while we die younger then my parents generation. I am really scared and really angry.

I want to know where my food comes from and
I want to grow it.
I want to wake up every morning and smell it.
I want to bring back communities by making the food local.

and it starts today, not tomorrow

I am not a wealthy man but a see alot of wealth in this idea.
I can grow fish and vegetables synergistic by replicating nature with no waste, in a little space, using little water and 3 light bulbs worth of power and I can leave it for weeks at a time while I travel for work, which suits me unbelievably.

It makes complete sense to me.

Just wondering how things are going over there Farmer Luke, any updates???