Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

They'll love those worms !

lol!
I think I am enjoying being naughty and skipping that a bit by going right to the Hydroton.
I thought we would have grandkids years ago. But now I guess we have AP to spend our money and time on instead.

Yeah, they really do. The little ones grab one on each end and then have a tug a war with them. I like to think of it as maybe a nice case of cooperation, but when one wins it swims off as fast as it can, so I may be wrong about it being cooperation.
When the large one sees a worm hanging out of the little ones mouth, it pulls it right out. Its a crack up to watch them eat them. Its like spaghetti.
I look forward to having the BSFL for them in the future. I bet they will like them even better, since they would be more bite size than some of the worms.
I hope worms make good plant food from the fish.

Heres an interesting picutre I found while stumbling around the internet

ROFL
That is so great!
Thanks

The past few days have been eventful. Yesterday I dug a walkway and filled it with gravel for nice travel between the house and the greenhouse since I am trekking out that way so frequently some of it was getting muddy. I used the left over pea rock, but find the dogs somewhat fling it everywhere and it is kind of like walking in soft sand. So maybe not the best idea I have had, but no mud either, so definitely not the worst either.

I am pretty excited, I transferred strawberries into my experimental system from my dirt garden on Sunday. There was a few strawberries but all green, but today one of them looks like this. I am having a oh my gosh moment, we don't get local ripe berries here in November! I think possibly this alone would be enough to hook me on AP.


We are still working on the main system, getting it plumbed and yesterday got the additional supports for the fish tanks and sumps cut and installed. Mostly things that Todd would do, so I have been nipping together my own little experimental system and so took some photos tonight of it. It seems to be doing well so I got a little Plecostomus to add in with my fantails when I picked up a test kit. No tests done yet, soon though. I had tested the ph yesterday and it was about 6.5.
I am still in awe of what cutting veggies is like from an AP system. One day after moving in some Kale plants from my dirt garden, I decided to nip some leaves to make a green smoothie with dinner. Major thumbs up! I seriously felt like I was cheating though since it had only lived in the system for one day.

Today, I went through all the tomato cuttings I had made from my dirt garden before the big rains came and moved them from the cups of water I had stuck them in at the time I cut them, into the experimental system. They look kind of sad, but maybe they will turn around. Some of them decided to grow fruit instead of roots, but since I overshot and cut 50 cuttings, I am not too worried and stuck them in anyway so their fruits will finish ripening. I love having tomatoes after the rains start, even if its not as many as I would like. Many of them are stuck way too close together, but I figure they will be easy to move once they recover, or easy to toss to the worms if they don't.

Here is a photo of one of my small beds in my experimental system showing the water depth. All my beds except 1 are constant flow over gravel or hydroton. I realize that their color is not so good, but for learning they are really helpful to see, as I learn, what is going on.


I will toss the other photos I took into a couple extra posts.

This is the view of the experimental system beds from my eye level.

But up here is where I have been working, it takes 2 at least, but usually 3 steps up my ladder to work up here. Its warm and enjoyable. I have to watch the clock closely if I need to do something else as time passes really quickly up here.







I hope everyone has a fantastic day!

Looking great Beth I take it you transplanted all those plants yes?

can someone tell me how to do multiple photos like that? i cant for the life of me figure it out

how is progress on the AP system beth? any photos of it?

Thank you!
Yes, everything except the water hyacinth (a gift from my father in law) and the avocado all lived in my dirt garden. The avocado has been floating around in the system the longest of any of them. It was hanging out in the fish tank until I got the little water bed available for it, which was a good thing since the fish were sucking on its roots. It has since started growing roots again, so guess it wasn't too traumatized. I have trouble resisting starting avocados when they have a root started when I cut them open, the others are still youngsters without any stem yet, hopefully I can rehome them.


I will try my best, not super literate as this is my first time being a part of a site like this.
I upload my photos to my slide site, then hit the Img button, right click on the slide photo of the one I want, choose copy image location, then paste it in between the [img /img]. This completes one photo, then I simply repeat the process for more photos.
I hope I explained that well enough you can understand. As I mentioned, I am not very literate about this kind of thing, so I may be not doing it as easily as it could be done, so if anyone else wants to help with this, I am glad to have it.

We have been busy in the evenings the past few days so have not had loads of time to get things done on the main system. We did a dry set up of the piping between the fish tanks and the sumps after we got the extra supports cut for all the tanks, cleaned the pump, worked on the wood stove pipe. Not lots to photograph at the moment, which is why I tried distracting you with photos of the experimental system.
But as soon as a bit more comes together, I will get some more photos.

thanks beth made perfect sense

Just a quick update without photos. We got the plumbing together, found leaks and a broken fitting, needed to take it all apart, decided we didn't like our configuration, made 2 more trips to the hardware store, the second one being because I got the wrong size fittings the first time. We laughed as we nearly left the store with the wrong fitting a second time, Todd's turn to pick up the wrong ones that time. Was all good for a laugh and so now we are in the almost ready to glue stage again.
Its hard for me to wait, since this is all the analytical type work he is so good at. But I think I get to wash the Hydroton this week, so I am looking forward to that. Might get it done just in time to get a few more plants out of the dirt garden before a good freeze arrives. (I hope, I hope)
As soon as we get glued up and get some water in to the tanks I will get a new photo or two.
Hope everyone is well and having a great weekend!

Oh yeah, nearly forgot. I tested the experimental system for ammonia and for nitrate, both zero. The ph is 6.5 Not sure if not enough fish, only 3 small fantails and 1 bigger one in 100 gallon tank? Still waiting to cycle? Already cycled? The plants seem happy and are growing. The fish seem happy and hungry. The water is crazy clear.
Any suggestions?

Someone here suggested for washing hydroton, punching a few holes in bottom of each bag, inserting garden hose in a hole in the top of bag with pressurized water.
Bag fills up , and dirt comes out the bottom
When done bags are easier to move than loose hydroton.

Beth

Can you post some basics on your plumbing config? What you used for siphon outlets, for inlets (size etc) and how you distributed the inlets to the GB's?

Cheers