Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks, I will have to get in touch with them and see if we can get something sent here. Some of the rules here in Cali can be a bit restrictive to say the least.
The water temp in my tank only gets down to about 55 degrees even in the dead of winter with no heat at all, so hopefully only a limited use of non solar heat will provide sufficient heat.
Thanks again, and good luck!

Joe

well, i ordered 25 fish last week, they were shipped out monday and arrived at my house tuesday.. water was pretty chilly so i put the double bagged fish in a bucket to warm up a bit..

i had a salt bath prepped (saltwater strength) as recommended by a guy that is raising yp, water was at 68f, ft water was at about 69/70..

i let the bag o' fish get to about 68 before giving them a dip in the salt, then into the ft with the little sunfish, found 1 dead one in the bag, he was stiff, it looks like he might have got stuck in a fold in the bag..and one died last night, but this am, the rest looked good and a couple even hit the little bit of feed i put in.. if all is ok by the time i get home tonight, i'll call it a success.. i took some pic's and will try to post this week.. radishes are doing great, green onions are growing, and lettuce from last week is starting to sprout..

finally resized some pics that i took sunday, without further ado

green onions coming along pretty quickly;


carrots (multicolored variety) starting well;


now for the fish, the new yellow perch with questionable sunfish;

some more fish, a few of the bigger yp and, i guess i'll say indeterminate sunfish;


one of the "better" (i use the term loosely) pics of the new fish;


another view of the bigger guys;

and while i was taking pic's of the "food" fish, i checked out their food tank (the rosy reds and cray's), and saw a little dance, only a couple of those came out;


the other one


not sure if it was a mating dance or what but they were spinning around with their mouths pretty much clamped on each other for a while
not bad for a free camera (but not great, i know)..... but it gives you an idea

llok like youll have fish babies soon

hadn't done a water test in a while, pulled the kit out and saw that the last one was november 11th
oops! but everything has been looking good, looks like some chives are sprouting, lettuce is sprouting.. and either a zuchini or cuke poking it's head up
my systems had been pretty consistantly at a ph of 7.6 to 7.8. up to november, today it was 6.4!
amonia less than .25
nitrites at .5 maybe a little higher
nitrates at 40

i wish i would have kept up the monthly or bi-weekly tests to see the ph drop, it took at least 9 months

Do you have any pictures of that lamp setup? Sounds pretty neat.

Mine didn't do so well this year - I got some squash borers and they made quick work of my spaghetti squash. How are thing going there?

had shoulder surgery last monday, and have just been feeding the fish, but noticed aphids pretty bad yesterday.. gonna have to get more ladybugs..
my perch from last year are 8 to 10 inches.. several are definitely "keepers" if i caught them, so after the arm is feeling better i might harvest a few for a meal
this year's perch are growing well, but i haven't been able to get my growbeds for the 700 gallon ft..i really want to get that done before the end of fall.. we'll see

been a while but finally!
$52... truck rental
$47... gas for truck
$160... 4 IBC Totes - i got 2 275gal, and 2 330 gal

i've been slowly working on the basement stuff.. had to pull the tomato plants out (3 of them) because they went nuts and took over the growbeds, i was just starting to get lots of flowers, but was also starting to get clogged gb's..so i removed them, and have replanted, a couple of basil cuttings, thyme, oregeno, carrots, radishes, lettuce, swiss chard and beats

i'm up to Five 55gal glass tanks, and the 8' swimming pool, found a pair of crayfish mating in the pool and put them in a tank by themselves
it looks like the rosy red minnows are breeding in clay pots that i put in the pool, so i gotta get the 5th 55gal tank online pretty soon for them.. right now i just have a blue drum swirl filter running on the pool..

the expansion isn't going to be moving too fast, i scrounged $ for several months to be able to get the totes.. i still need gravel and some plumbing bits, but i already have a pump for the pool...

i have lots of time off coming up - i was saving it in case i had to take it for the shoulder surgery (coming along quite nicely btw) but disability covered that.. so till the end of the year, i'll have time to get started but will probably be held back a little bit $ wise.. still.. things are starting to move and i'm quite happy that progress will start once again..

i'm going to put some drawings together, (got a bunch of housework to do to get ready for winter, already talking snow on the weather channel) and asking for some assistance.. my biggest hurdle will be my height constraints, the area where the growbeds will be is a hair taller than 6' (1828mm).. and yeah, i gotta do something about the camera situation...

Sounds great Keith, so the swimming pool and ibcs will be indoors?

yeah, i've had the swimming pool in the basement for a while now.. filled it, and looking at all that water, i had to throw some minnows and crayfish in there.. i have 2 crayfish left from last year, but the bait shop near my house had some little ones, so i threw in 4 dozen or so (over a couple of weeks)
long term plans are to move the yp and bg to the pool.. they'll eat up the minnows and most of the crayfish (the little ones anyways)... from the tanks i clear out,, i'm thinking i'll have 2 for crayfish, 2 for minnows and one for either daphnia or glass shrimp.. (or maybe cherry shrimp)..
the next "big purchase" is going to be gravel as soon as i figure out how much i need

That's awesome but Pictures or it didn't happen!

Sounds great. I spent last weekend winterizing. The tomatos were huge, but only a handful got ripe. Oh well.

I got a grand total of one ripe cherry tomato this year, the ones outside now won't be long for this world, it's freaking cold tonight!