Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here's a couple more general shots of the system.

You better pick that tomato, as I can see a feathery fiend with her eye on it.

They are a bit partial to tomatoes, but luckily for me she is to fat and lazy to jump that high! I have never seen her or her sister try to fly at all.

But yes it will be coming in very soon, just noticed a couple more starting to redden.

My water has started to go green over the past few days with the extra warmth and sunlight.
Apart from not being able to see the fish, what are the downsides to having green water?

My Ph is still high going from 7.4 to 8.4 in the afternoon, does this also cause the water to go green?

Will put some shad cloth over the the water to see if it helps,

The greening is due to algae... algae will swing your pH "diurnally"....

Cover your tank....

Thanks Rupe

And for those like me this is what "diurnal" means:

diurnal |dīˈərnl|
adjective
1. of or during the day.
• Zoology (of animals) active in the daytime.
• Botany (of flowers) open only during the day.
2. daily; of each day : diurnal rhythms.
• Astronomy of or resulting from the daily rotation of the earth.

DERIVATIVES
diurnally adverb

ORIGIN late Middle English (as a term in astronomy): from late Latin diurnalis, from Latin diurnus ‘daily,’ from dies ‘day.’

Not what 1st came into my mind

I will go out and cover it now!

I have begun the process of covering the fish tank.

As you can see I have placed a pine board below the GB and a sheet of tin over the FT. My plan is to cut the tin to the shape of the FT and then hinge it to the pine.



Under the tin I'm going to screw some timber to help give it strength and some weight so little people can not lift it up. I have my 4 year old nephew arriving in 2 weeks for Christmas and also our own bungle of crying, pooping joy is due in 4 to 6 weeks .

I have a heap of 10mm styrofoam sheets in the workshop so was thinking of glueing them to the under side of the tin to help keep the heat being radiated through over summer down and also help keep some heat in during winter.

With the hinges I going to take the pins out and replace then with nails I have bent over on one end, this will make it easy to take the lid off if need be for harvesting or just wanting to sit and watch the fish.
The around the sides put slats between the legs with a flap at the back that opens down for feeding and checking the water temp.



We've had 61.5mm of rain since Wednesday and it's still raining, light rain but enough to think twice before getting the angle grinder out!

The fish are going off when ever there is food on offer even with the water now down to 17.5˚C. They are hitting the food so fast now even the gold fish have a chance, I swear there starting look thin.

Finally the sun arrived for a cameo appearance this afternoon, so I've made the most of it and have fitted the lid to my FT.

It's been cut to shape and some supporting timbre added underneath. Just need to get some hinges and glues the styrofoam to the under side and it's done.

Also ran some water tests this afternoon.
Seems having the lid on and keeping the sun out is helping keep the PH a bit under control. Usually by this time of the afternoon the PH is at 8.4 today it measure 7.8.
Ammonia .25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5.0

AFter the dosing of Iron and a cap full of Seasol the plants are staring to look healthy with the new shoots coming up being very green.

Looks great. Well done

Thanks Mantis!

I did have some green tin but thought the contrast looked better. Might use the green to go around the base of the FT?

Finally finished the lids off this afternoon with hinges and foam underneath for insulation. While I had it off doing the final touches I notice the water is already starting to clear.

Water temp back up to 20˚C today, this should make the Sp's a bit hungrier!!

Nice work, insulated lids make a whole lot of difference :d

22˚C in the FT today, the fish have had 3 feeds and each time you would have thought I hadn't fed them for a week!

Note to self when sticking foam to the under side of corrugated iron in full best not use hot glue as the name suggests it melts when hot!

Will have to come up with a new plan for that tomorrow.

With the water a little green and mucky for the past week I haven't really been able to see the SP's only a silver flash as they hit the food on the surface. Today I opened the lid to let some light in as I fed them and they have put on a bit of size. The biggest would be as long as an average gold fish now.

Will try to find the time tomorrow to do a video up-date.

been a while since I've seen your system,
Looking nice,
will not be to long before you can reap the benefits

Regards
Matt