Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well... have no strawbs, and the cukes that are left after being ravaged by powdery wont be much of a loss anyway... so I can live with that

thanks for the help guys

How about an up date or to busy picking oranges

Hi F&F!

Didnt realise how long since the last update ... yeah, pretty flat out and its only the beginning...

The silvers stopped flashing after we salted which was good... but lost the cukes... spaghetti squash arent looking flash ATM... and chilli is not looking too great either.

Other than that we have heaps of seedlings popping up, and our snow and sugar snap peas are ready and taste absolutely BEAUTIFUL and sweet! Threw in some carrot seed yesterday that I was given - not sure how they will grow in gravel but doesnt hurt to see how they go

Still have powdery problems, zucchini is struggling a bit - and unexpectedly, we have had a pretty bad powdery outbreak on the silverbeet! never knew it was susceptible to be honest!

unfortunately I noticed yesterday that the silvers are starting to flash again... (lunchtime temps were at 12.3 today) so might try to grab them all out of the big tank and dump them into one of the 500L tanks at high salt concentration this time instead of salting the whole system... its not Ich as far as I can tell as there is nothing visible... but was told there is a parasite they get when the temps drop but cant remember what it is... anyone know?

have had some awesome yabby meals and have ended up adding to the ones wild caught with big ones from the system to bump up our eating numbers... and we could definitely tell the difference between them! Meat was heaps sweeter and less muddy... very yum!

our baby yabbies are doing well, and have 3 batches swimming around ATM... will be interesting to see how they go, and if they can survive the lower temps, and are malting so have a few sizes ranging from just under 1cm to nearly 2cms... cant see them during the day, but they come out in droves at night time - so cute!

another thing thats been going on which we cant work out is that for some reason one of the duckweed tanks is dying off - nearly all the duckweed is now white!?! There are a few small streaks of white in a couple of the others, but apart from that, there is only the 1 tank thats dying off... any thoughts?

Thanks all looks good
Duckweed i have had a few lots over the years it realy grows well then all of a sudden it dies off
We will be in town in a couple of weeks for a few days if possable i would like to see your system
i have your no will ring closer to the time
cheers FF

i read something about how it goes through a cycle of several reproductions but stops and dies off, you can tell by the lenght of the roots.... adding different duckweed (from other sources) will extend it's life

well.. i read it somewhere, so it must be true, right?

No worries... definitely looking forward to meeting you F&F

Thanks for your duckweed help guys... I originally thought it might have been from lack of nutrients, but will work from that theory and add some duckweed from a different tank as some of the tanks are from a different source... see if it makes a difference

nice thread!!!
regards
Matt..

Bump and subscribe.

Cheers guys

Hasn't been much happening lately... but really looking forward to a visit from F&F next week so just waiting to see what he makes of it all... and getting a list of questions ready

Carrot seedlings are popping up everywhere... Black Russian toms are getting big - not sure if they will actually ripen tho once the cold really sets in... corn silks have started going brown too, so will have to try and work out when they are ready to harvest

We had our water cut off for a couple of days and got it back on last night so was concentrating on babying the system. The tanks were already low when the water was turned off unfortunately, so we just ran the water for 10 hours each day on the shortest gravel bank of GBs (ie: the one that is empty gravel at one end, and no gravel at the other - water just goes straight down the standpipe into the sump.) Didnt notice any plants stressed which was good considering that the other banks only got one 15 minute burst each over the whole 48 hour period...

better get back to work before the boss fires me... have a good one

With the corn just pull the covering green sheath apart so you can see the cob, then you will be able to see if the kernels are ripe or not.

Will carrots grow?

I have clay then blue metal, i dont know if it will push its way through it lol.

I have a few big carrot plants but dont know if they anything under the clay

Thanks mantis... is is right that you test a kernel with your fingernail and if the juice is milky then its ready? I have absolutely no idea! I was given a couple of heads of heirloom variety seed... will eventually have a couple of clay beds - but until then I thought I might as well test it out and see what happens

I spose we will see when the time comes... you could always pull one up and see Zman ... please let me know how you go if you can because your going to find out well before me...it will be interesting to see what happens to yours when they hit the blue metal

Oh, by the way... water temps are getting down to 9 ATM with overnight temps of 0 deg - hate to think what they'll be if we get -11 overnighters like we did a few years back.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2577&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=byap+display&start=405
Scroll down here to see the carrots that came out of our blue metal. 1/2 way down the page.

carrots growing in vemiculite in ap

was this a wicking bed, F&F?